


Wait, you're called Indigo?

by Grimmijaggers



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Admiration, Basketball, Gen, High School, Kirisaki Daiichi High (Freeform), Kuroko no basket ocs, Non-identical twins, OCs - Freeform, One Sided Relationships, Rivalry, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-03-22 08:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3722773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimmijaggers/pseuds/Grimmijaggers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirisaki Daiichi High School Basket ball team receive two new first years. Surprise to all, they are non-identical twins with a flashy hair colour. Kurara, the younger sister, and Eita the older brother, play as a team alongside Hanamiya Makoto, Hara Kazuya, Yamazaki Hiroshi, Furuhashi Koujirou and Seto Kentarou. However, it seems Kurara has a crush on Hanamiya's rival and enemy, Kiyoshi Teppei. Too bad for Hanamiya and Hara, who desperately compete to gain Kurara's heart. And poor forgotten Eita meets the basketball player he admires the most, Imayoshi.<br/>OK, so how's this gonna turn out, eh?<br/>-Mod Grimmi</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

Aimaru Eita and Aimaru Kurara attend Kirisaki Daiichi. They are first years, and are both in the Basketball club. That would seem normal, wouldn’t it? It didn’t matter to anybody that they were unidentical twins or not, or that their hair was indigo by nature. However, Aimaru Kurara was a girl. In a Basketball team were all the members were guys. But she couldn’t care less. 

Eita and Kurara both have indigo hair and eyes. Both their hair reaches to their shoulders and they are both the same height of 191 cm tall. For Eita, that’d be acceptable, but for Kurara, that’s way too much. Much like Hara pointed out, ‘she’s the sort of girl who could pummel any guy in any sport’. Not that Kurara actually wanted to do that. 

The only reason they both attended Kirisaki Daiichi was because their parents were both high up in society and incredibly rich. Not that that Eita or Kurara cared much. They were both A* grade students when they studied hard, otherwise they were usually B grade students. People’s opinion on them differed greatly. Eita was thought of as good looking, tall, calm and very kind. He was the big brother sort of person, always ready to help no matter the time or consequences. While Kurara was thought as beautiful, slender, hyper and very cheeky. In a good way. So maybe not so different, but their characters were quite different. Eita tended to keep quiet, and only spoke when necessary. Kurara, on the other hand, was very opinionated. While Eita had lots of common sense, Kurara had close to none. Another difference: Eita was clever outside of class, while Kurara could be thought of as a bit of a dunce. 

So here’s the cliché of the Kuroko no Basket series. Most of the players tend to only enjoy Basketball and have no other hobbies, much like Hyuuga Junpei. That’s not completely true when it comes to these two oddballs. They have a lot of hobbies, such as horse riding for Kurara and painting for Eita. They also like to hang out with a small handful of people. Those people happened to be the main members of the Kirisaki Daiichi Basketball team, Hanamiya Makoto, Furuhashi Kojiro, Hara Kazuya, Seto Kentaro and Yamazaki Hiroshi. The reason for this is that Eita and Kurara respect these five people with all their beings, even if they do use dirty tactics for Basketball games. But Eita and Kurara couldn’t care less.

It was a normal day, before the Winter Cup preliminaries, where Eita and Kurara were sitting in their classroom during lunch break. It was quite cold outside, and neither sibling were keen on getting a cold by standing outside. 

“Oi, oi, Eita, Kurara!” Hara called out to them from the classroom door. The twins turned their heads to him, and smiled in greeting, Eita gently, and Kurara widely. The purpled-haired teenager was blowing a bubble in his bubbled gum as usual. He took a seat next to the indigo haired siblings. He was soon followed by Furuhashi and Yamazaki, who did the same as he did. They were all carrying their lunch boxes, as homemade food was better than cafeteria food any day. Unless it was Seto’s cooking. “What do you have in your lunchbox today?” Hara asked, seemingly passionated by the twins’ food. Kurara grinned widely, and winked.

“It’s a Cat Bento lunch box.” Kurara answered enthusiastically. The three newcomers looked worried, not too sure what to expect.

“Wait…you mean…” Yamazaki paled a little. Eita chuckled silently, and showed them the content of his lunch box. It was a simple hand and cheese sandwich cut out in the shape of a cat, with carrots and celery as a decoration to make the eyes, mouth and whiskers. On the side were some crackers and cheese, the cheese seeming to be in the shape of a mouse. There was a side salad and strawberries and grapes as dessert. Yamazaki stared, before laughing. “Wah, you two are still like kids, even if you are so fuckin’ tall.” Another thing: Eita and Kurara both like cute things. Hara hit the back of his teammate’s head.

“Hey, there’s no need to be rude.” Hara joked. As Yamazaki started arguing with Hara about it, Furuhashi, being the relaxed guy he is, complimented Kurara casually for her creativeness. 

“By the way, where’s Makoto-senpai and Kentaro-senpai?” Kurara asked curiously. Furuhashi thought for a second, his blank eyes studying his bento in thought. He picked up a piece of carrot, and placed it in his mouth.

“I think…” he munched thoughtfully. “I think they’re planning out how to crush Seirin.” He answered finally. Kurara sighed. Even if she did respect Hanamiya, it didn’t mean she liked how he had this blood thirsty desire to crush Kiyoshi Teppei. “When we play in the match, don’t let that crush of yours bring down the team.” Furuhashi pointed. Kurara nearly choked on her sandwich, coughing loudly.

“Excuse me? What has that got to do with anything?” she asked with an embarrassed tone, a light blush covering her cheeks. Yamazaki snorted, having heard their conversation.

“A lot, actually.” Hanamiya’s voice came from the door. Everybody turned to look at the grumpy black haired teenager, Seto standing next to him, with his usual smirk. “If you don’t cheer for us during the game against Seirin, I’ll kick you out the club.” He pointed out. Kurara rolled her eyes.

“I thought we had cleared this out, Makoto-senpai.” She sighed. “Basketball and my crushes are completely unrelated. If I were to play in the match at all, I wouldn’t go easy on them just because Teppei’s in the team; I’d actually play my very best. I’m not some sensitive hearted girl, even Yamazaki knows that.” Hiroshi huffed in offense, but decided against arguing, as it was not the moment. Hanamiya smirked at the girl’s response. Even if she was quite the dunce and incredibly lively, he found it amusing how she could answer him without being intimidated by his dark looks, unlike the other first-years who merely trembled at his sight.

“Hmph, well as long as we’re clear about that.” Makoto responded calmly, taking a seat next to Eita. “But what’s with the cat shaped sandwich?”


	2. Meeting those two...

Hanamiya blinked, staring at the taller girl in front of him. Hanamiya had been running the stand for the basketball club at the beginning of the new school year. The dark haired teenagers had been so bored, due to the fact of nobody actually wanting to come near him due to his hostile aura. Well, a few had approached, then scattered quickly. But not this first year.   
She had indigo coloured hair, and a goofy grin on her face, the type that annoyed Hanamiya the most. He frowned deeply, greyish brown eyes observing the first year suspiciously.  
“Heya, senpai! This is the basketball club stand thing, right?” she asked with joyful voice. She’d be called charming, but Hanamiya wasn’t exactly one easy to be charmed. Not that the indigo haired girl seemed to be trying to charm him, Hanamiya noted.   
“It is, but you can’t join.” He stated flatly, crossing his arms. It didn’t really matter if she joined or not. Some of his classmates had already joined due to him requesting them to. The first year looked surprised.  
“Heeeeh? Why not?” She asked indignantly, hands on hips. The older boy wanted to facepalm.  
“Because this is a boys’ basketball team. Girls can’t join.” He stated obviously. The girl burst out laughing.  
“Oh, that again! That’s what they said in America too!” she grinned widely, shaking her head. “After they accepted me though, they didn’t want to me leave! Not meaning to show off, senpai.” Hanamiya raised an eyebrow curiously. America, eh? Seems she was a returnee. “Come on, senpai! Gimme a chance. If you find me useless, then I won’t bother you anymore, but if I am of some use, lemme join!” With that look, even Hanamiya couldn’t say ‘no’.  
“Fine. One chance.” He grunted, a little annoyed. He gave the girl a form. “Fill this in.” he said casually, leaning back in his chair. The girl grabbed a pen and filled it in. She gave the completed form back. Hanamiya narrowed his eyes. “…Ai? Really?” the girl blushed.  
Ai in Japanese means both ‘indigo’ and ‘love’, depending on its context. Hanamiya snickered then laughed. The taller girl blushed even more, pouting a little.   
“I-It’s not that funny.” She muttered. “What’s your name anyway, senpai?” Hanamiya smirked.  
“Hanamiya Makoto.” He said. The girl blinked and snickered in turn. Hanamiya frowned suddenly, an annoyed expression on his face. “What’s so funny?”  
“‘F-Flowery truth’? That name doesn’t fit you at all, Hanamiya-senpai!” she snickered into her arm, trying to keep her laughter in, causing her eyes to fill up with tears. Hanamiya flushed for a second, and was about to retort when the girl did an exaggerated wave somewhere in the crowd.  
“Eita! Over here!” the girl called out to someone name ‘Eita’ in English. Hanamiya looked at the newcomer, and gaped. The boy coming up them was the same height as the girl, and had the same hair colour. He smiled to the girl and then to the older teenager. “Hanamiya-senpai, this is my big brother, Aimaru Eita! Eita, this is Hanamiya Makoto-senpai.” the girl chimed. Eita bowed a little, smiling. “He’s the quiet type.” She added.   
“I see that.” Hanamiya stated flatly, resting his cheek on his hand, his elbow supporting him as it was leant on the table. “You joining the basketball club too, Aimaru?” he asked. Eita nodded, and his senpai gave him a form. He glanced at his sister, and she nodded.  
“Hanamiya-senpai, Eita says you can call us by our first names, so that we don’t get confused.” The younger girl told the black haired boy. Hanamiya raised his eyebrows. Were they telepathic or something?  
“Ha, really? Wouldn’t adding ‘chan’ or ‘kun’ make things simpler?” he asked, as if daring her to answer back. The Aimaru sister laughed.  
“But Hanamiya-senpai, you don’t seem the type to add honorifics.” She chimed. The Kirisaki Daiichi captain furrowed his eyebrows. What was she, a mind reader?  
“I can if I want, actually, Aimaru-chan.” He retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. Eita smiled and gave back the form.   
“But you won’t with us, right, Hanamiya-senpai?” The girl giggled. “Just call me Kurara.” Hanamiya narrowed his eyes, then smirked.  
“Fine, Kurara.”

 

The first years and second years gaped as Kurara made another goal. She was a feisty one, that’s for sure.   
Hanamiya had placed the first years against the second years, and had made Eita Power Forward, due to him filling the form up with that being his chosen position. Kurara on the other hand, had written ‘I don’t mind’, so Hanamiya simply placed her as centre. But he couldn’t believe what he was saying.   
Even if in basketball the positions weren’t definite, people usually stood out as one specific type of position. But Kurara was all over the place! At the beginning of the game, after the tip-off, she beat Seto and hit the ball to Eita, who dribbled at a shocking speed for his height. He would’ve dunked if Yamazaki hadn’t been in the way, however, he did a quick pass to Kurara who had arrived at the three point line a while ago. With that, she scored a three immediately. Hanamiya couldn’t believe it. Their synchronisation was unbelievably accurate. Probably due to being twins, he noted.  
Kurara grinned to Eita who smiled back. Eita was a strong Power Forward, there was no doubt in that. His height didn’t affect his speed and merely contributed to his shooting capability. Though Hanamiya noticed that at times he seemed quite hesitant. A careful player it seemed. He’d need to work on that; players in his team needed to be able to take risks.   
Hanamiya wiped the sweat from his chin and grinned. This set of twins would definitely be of use.  
He looked at the score board. Hah, there was ten seconds left of the whole match between the firsts and second years, might as well welcome them with a little surprise. Hara passed the ball to Hanamiya, who did a straight up dribble to the hoop. However his speed was impossibly to follow, and the three other first years gave up instantly. Eita on the other hand marked Hanamiya before he got to the free throw line, and the Kirisaki Daiichi captain had to admit that Eita was a very good marker, since he couldn’t shake the teenager off. He smirked sadistically and the first year flinched noticeably at the look.  
“Heh~ you obviously know when you’re faced with danger, EITA!” Hanamiya exclaimed, his smirk growing larger as he stepped forward, readying to shoot. His timing was perfect. With his jumping foot, he stepped on Eita’s left foot, making him unable to stop the shot, but also unable to fall and gain a free shot. It was one of Hanamiya’s favourite tricks to play on new payers. Eita made a small grunt of pain as he stepped backwards. The captain smirked and made the shot. His grey brown eyes widened as Kurara used her brother’s shoulders as leverage and jumped upwards, using her right hand to push herself upwards higher. It would have stopped any normal shot, even a fade away shot. Hanamiya gave her that she was a quick thinker and seemed to adapt to situation quickly. “Too bad, Kurara.” He smirked.   
Kurara’s eyes widened considerably as Hanamiya made his Floater Shot. She followed the ball with her eyes as it went into the basket without touching its hoops. She landed on the ground, her face showing pure awe. The referee of the mini match blew the whistle. The score was 98-100 to the second years. Kurara turned to Eita with a worried expression.  
Eita was trying to step on his foot, and he flinched in mild pain.  
“Eita! What’s wrong?!” his sister exclaimed in worry, gaining the other first year’s attention. Hanamiya smirked mischievously. Eita glanced at the captain but smiled to Kurara and shook his head. Kurara seemed unsatisfied with the answer and glared at Hanamiya. “What did you do to him?!” Hanamiya put on an innocent expression.  
“Heh~? What are you blaming for?” he chuckled. He could see Kurara’s face reddening up in anger.  
“Don’t play the nice guy act, Hanamiya-senpai! I was joking when I said that name didn’t fit you!” she shouted angrily stamping her foot on the court. Hanamiya was a little taken back. No girl had ever addressed him in that way. “You obviously did something to him and don’t lie! Your façade doesn’t work on me!” she added with a growl. Eita placed a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. “I don’t care, Eita! I want to know what he did to you, since you won’t tell me!”  
“Ah, calm down, Kurara.” Hanamiya smirked. The indigo haired girl narrowed her eyes angrily at him. “This was only a taster of what I need my team members to do.” He said, waving his hand nonchalantly. Eita frowned in confusion. The other first years were also confused, while the second years smirked. “If you’re willing to play in my team, you need to be willing to playing dirty and underhanded tricks.” He addressed all the first years now. Some first years gaped in horror. “If you’re not willing to do so…then leave now.”   
Some hesitated before leaving, others made a direct bee-line to the changing rooms. Only a small handful, including Eita and Kurara, stayed behind. The black haired teenager narrowed his eyes on the twins. Kurara looked at him angrily, and cracked her knuckles. Eita looked exasperated.  
“You are…SUCH AN ASSHOLE!” Kurara shouted, whacking Hanamiya on the head with a karate shop. That was further than Hanamiya’s calculations went. Ditch the ‘no girl ever’ idea; no one ever DARED to hit HIM.  
“What the fuck d’you think you’re doing!?” he shouted, holding his sore head. Sheesh, that chick hit hard.  
“THAT’S MY LINE!” Kurara retorted loudly. “YOU EXPECT ME TO USE DIRTY TRICKS?! FUCK THAT! I’LL PLAY MY BASKETBALL, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT SHORTY!” Grey brown eyes twitched.  
“Shorty, eh?” Hanamiya’s voice trembled with anger. “SHOW ME SOME RESPECT, BLOODY FIRST YEAR! YOU SHOULD BE CAREFUL HOW YOU SPEAK TO YOUR CAPTAIN, AIMARU KURARA!” he yelled, his voice echoing through the gym. The first and second years were all slowly walking to the furthest wall away from the arguing students. Eita was the one to interrupt the two.  
“Kurara, that’s enough.” He said firmly, his voice surprisingly strict and serious. Kurara clamped her mouth shut, glaring still at Hanamiya as she lowered her head. “My foot’s fine. Hanamiya-senpai only stepped on it.” His sister’s head snapped up in anger, but seeing the frowning expression on her older sibling’s face she lowered her head again. Eita turned to Hanamiya, whose face was still red from his shouting. “I apologise for my sister’s behaviour. Although your tactics did also take me by surprise.” He smiled calmly to the captain. Usually Hanamiya got pissed off at people like Eita, but for some reason, he found the smile oddly soothing.  
“Tsch…Fine.” Hanamiya waved it away dismissively. “I’ll let it go this one time.” He said aggressively. Kurara’s face was hidden by her face. Everything stayed still for a moment, then she energetically looked up at the captain. She held her stare, then bowed down lowly.  
“I’m sorry for my rudeness, Makoto-senpai!” she apologised. Hanamiya blinked and looked away, making a soft grunting noise in recognition. Kurara grinned and raised her head.   
“As long as you add ‘senpai’ to my name, I don’t care which name you use.” He muttered, mostly to himself, but the indigo haired girl heard him, grinning even more. “You’re all dismissed for today!”   
As the first years left for the changing rooms, he deadpanned. What was Kurara going to do about the changing rooms? He looked to in the direction of the changing rooms. Eita was stopping from Kurara from entering with the boys, and pushing her to the girls’ changing rooms, much to the identical girl’s indignation.   
What a stupid girl…did she think herself as a boy?  
“She’s seems the tomboy, don’t you think?” Hara asked, standing next to Hanamiya, chewing gum as usual. The captain shrugged. He then noticed something strange. Hara was seemingly staring at Kurara’s back.   
“Hara…what are you doing?” the black haired captain asked the gum chewing player. Hara grinned.  
“She’s got nice legs~” he chimed. Hanamiya didn’t see the relevance, then remembered that one time that they were all discussing their types of girls. Hara had said he liked girls with nice legs. Hanamiya’s type of girl was a stupid one.   
“Back off, she’s off limits.” Hanamiya snarled. Hara looked surprised. He gave a wicked smile.   
“Heh, I don’t mind some competition, Hanamiya~!” he said, his voice daring. As the two glared daggers to each other, Seto sighed.  
“Man, I pity Kurara.” He entrusted Yamazaki and Furuhashi, who both nodded in agreement. She had no idea what she unwillingly got into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, let’s go back to before the Winter Cup preliminaries… ^u^


	3. Kurara Aimaru

Basketball practice was as vigorous as ever. Even if Eita and Kurara weren’t regulars, they still had to practice a heck of a lot to be kept in the first team. Especially Kurara, as she had to keep up with the boys, who naturally had more physical strength than her. But with this sort of practice given by Hanamiya, she had been able to keep up easily. 

“Alright, that’s it for today. It’s getting dark outside, and I don’t want to miss my train.” Hanamiya stated loudly, making his way to the changing rooms. “Eita, Kurara, Hara, you pick up all the basketballs today.” 

“Yeeeeees Captain~!” Hara and Kurara chimed. Eita silently got to work, not wanting to drag on the time they had to spend cleaning up. He and Kurara needed to get home soon, as their house was quite far away. “Hey, guys, what are you doing this weekend?” Hara asked suddenly, his voice echoing in the empty gym.

“Nothing really, just some studying.” Kurara answered while shrugging; pushing her long hair back away from her face as it clung to it with sweat. 

“Eh, you guys are so boring. Let’s go to the arcade on Saturday afternoon then, since you guys have nothing to do!” The grey haired bubble gum loving teenager proposed. Kurara looked at Eita, who nodded.

“Sure, why not?”

 

“Wah, so big!” Kurara expressed in awe. To be honest, neither her nor Eita were too keen on arcades, but once in a while didn’t hurt.

“Yeah, it’s one of the biggest in Tokyo! It’s a good place to hang out with friends, neh?” Hara agreed, popping his bubble gum. “Alright! Where to?”

They spent a long two hours in the arcade, playing all the different games and winning quite a few prices. Eita found out he was pretty good at the shooting games, while Kurara enjoyed the fighting games more. Hara was just plain good at everything. They had also found one of those games where you throw a basketball into a net to accumulate points and win a prize before the time limit. Hara bet with Eita and Kurara he could shoot twice as much as them, and that’s how he ended up buying them ice creams. There’s a reason why Eita was a Power Forward and even if Kurara didn’t have a definite position she was a good shooter, even if Hara was Small Forward. It was about three o’clock when they decided to get something to eat, Hara insisting he was going to buy Eita and Kurara lunch. As they settled in the nearby Maji burger restaurant, Kurara went to save them seats, as the queue seemed to be quite long, leaving Eita and Hara to order the food.

She sighed happily as she sat down on the cheap plastic seats. It was nice to do something else about from work and basketball sometimes. Even her hobbies at home were boring after a while. 

“Kiyoshi, go save us some seats.” A voice among the ruckus said. Kurara perked her head upwards, and looked around.

“OK~!” a deeper voice chimed. Kurara was suddenly face to face with a somewhat familiar school uniform. She looked up, to see the silhouette of her basketball idol, Kiyoshi Teppei. 

“You’re-!” She exclaimed, standing up abruptly. As Kiyoshi placed his bag on a table, he turned to look at her with a gentle expression. “You’re Kiyoshi Teppei-san…” she calmed herself (if that’s even possible), saying this as if she was just making an observance. Kiyoshi blinked, and grinned.

“Indeed I am, but I don’t know who you are. What’s your name?” he asked casually. It hit Kurara that she’d just addressed Kiyoshi as a complete stranger, which isn’t something you get every day.

“Oh, I’m sorry, how rude of me! I’m Aimaru Kurara. I…I’ve watched you play Basketball often.” She introduced herself, bowing a little and extending her hand for a handshake. She had wanted to say, ‘I’m a big fan of yours’, but thought it might creep her idol out a bit. As Kiyoshi and her shook hands, Teppei seemed curious.

“Eh, really? I’m not all that famous though.” He said kindly. Kurara scoffed.

“How can you say that? If it weren’t for the Generation of Miracles, I’d say you were officially one of the best players I know.” She retorted loudly, obviously passionate about the topic. Kiyoshi blinked and laughed. Kurara grinned widely; glad she hadn’t said something too stupid for once.

Kiyoshi and Kurara started talking while they waited for their friends to come with the food. They talked mainly about basketball themed things, such as how long they had played for or who they looked up to. The latter question had been awkward for Kurara to answer, as she couldn’t very well say ‘oh, I really look up to you Kiyoshi-senpai’ without sounding like an obsessed fangirl. 

“So apart from Basketball, what other hobbies to you have?” Kiyoshi asked her. 

“Well, I do horse riding, as well as surfing during the summer. I’m quite sporty!” She answered enthusiastically, simply happy to spend time with one of her favourite players. “I also play the guitar, even if not very well, and I do golf at school too, since the golf club is very strong. But I still prefer basketball. Other than that, I guess you could say studying is a hobby of some sort. I need to keep my grades up if I want to stick around my school.” Kiyoshi looked surprised to hear this.

“Wow, that’s some pretty high up school you’ve got there. What’s school is this?” He asked in awe. Kurara’s mouth went dry. She couldn’t very well say that she attended the same school as Kiyoshi’s arch rival and sworn enemy (From Hanamiya’s point of view anyway). Kurara took a deep sigh.

“I attend Kirisaki Daiichi.” She said quickly. Kiyoshi seemed completely unfazed, maybe even happy, or at least that was what his grinning was suggesting.

“Really? Wow that is high up.” Kiyoshi chimed. Kurara was both surprised and relieved. “So you know Hanamiya Makoto-kun then?” she tensed.

“Yes, I do.” She nodded. They stayed in a sort of awkward silence, and Kurara glanced to see where her brother and friend were in the queue. They were almost to the counter. “I…do respect Makoto-senpai. He’s not as bad a guy as he puts off to be.” 

“Hm, I’m sure that’s true.” Kiyoshi agreed with enthusiasm. Kurara glanced down to the floor, but stop at Kiyoshi’s bad knee. She looked up again, a questioning look on her face. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t hold a grudge against him.” He added carefreely. Kurara nodded in understanding.

“Yes, I suppose no one wouldn’t.” she whispered, almost embarrassed at having to touch such a subject. “I know Kirisaki Daiichi’s reputation for having awfully foul students is well known, but I think that’s just prejudice.”

“It must be, if a nice girl like you is attending it.” Kiyoshi pointed out sweetly. Kurara blushed a little, but didn’t say anything after that (oh wow she actually stopped talking). How could she? It was really awkward for her after all.

“Oi, Kurara, we finally made it. Huh?” Hara called out with a tray in his hands. His look paused on Kiyoshi, who smiled at the boy. “Heeeeeeeh, Kurara are you-?” 

“Say anything and I’ll choke you with you bubble gum.” She hissed just loud enough for Hara to hear. He closed his mouth immediately and took a place in front of her. Eita glanced at Kiyoshi. “Ah, Kiyoshi-san, this is my teammate Hara Kazuya-senpai, and my older twin brother, Aimaru Eita.”

“Nice to meet you, Kiyoshi-san.” Eita greeted, since it was just polite to do so. 

“Nice to meet you too, Aimaru-kun.” Kiyoshi answered with a smile, and waved to his own friends, Hyuga Junpei and Aida Riko. Hyuga narrowed his eyes to the three unknown people. “Hyuga, these three are from Kirisaki Daiichi.” Kiyoshi said, which cause Hyuga to have a very pissed off look. Kurara and Eita couldn’t care less, but Hara took the opportunity to tease Hyuga.

“There’s no need to look so pissed off, it’s not like we actually did anything to you.” He said with a smirk, as he blew a bubble in his bubble gum. Kurara narrowed her eyes, and kicked Hara hard under the table, and even if the latter did flinch, he didn’t back down from the opportunity to tease.

“Like I care if you did or didn’t. I don’t like your school and that’s it.” Hyuga jumped into Hara’s trap without thinking. Eita ate quietly as the petty comments and insults were thrown over him from Hyuga to Hara and vice versa, as he was sitting in the middle. Riko sighed.

“Good grief…” she grumbled. Kurara was completely ignoring the two arguing teenagers, and kept on talking with Kiyoshi happily, hearts flying everywhere around her. The three Kirisaki Daiichi students finished their food before the Seirin students. Even though Hyuga was glaring daggers at Kazuya, and Riko seemed unimpressed with any of them, Kurara thought that they seemed to be a nice bunch of people, especially Kiyoshi. Eita hadn’t at all, but came to the same conclusion at Kurara. The girl twin was the most talkative one, after all. 

“Heh, that was nice, don’t ya think?” Hara grinned, glancing to Kurara.

“Yes, it was. It would have been even better if you hadn’t pissed off Hyuga-san so much though, Kazuya-senpai.” Kurara smiled calmly.

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry~” he teased.

 

Hanamiya was looking out onto the school yard from the roof lazily. He couldn’t have cared less to go out and ‘socialise’ or whatever the girls called their constant ranting about boys and fashion. Especially about that Kise Ryouta guy. He seemed to be getting very famous lately. Those were the sort of people Hanamiya wanted to see in despair. The Bad Boy smirked to himself, until he heard someone step onto the roof. He looked round to see Kurara walking towards him. The wind was quite strong up here, and Hanamiya was mildly tempted to tilt his head sideways to-

“Uhum, Makoto-senpai. I believe your ‘Bad Boy’ nickname is only relevant to Basketball.” Kurara stated bluntly, tapping her foot impatiently, getting Hanamiya’s attention back from her legs to look at her face. 

“Of course it is.” Hanamiya smirked, his voice faking sweet innocence. Kurara rolled her eyes; even if it was impolite towards one of the people she respected the most. She sat down next to Hanamiya, looking down. “Is there a particular reason you came up here?” the black haired boy asked.

“What, I’m not allowed to enjoy the fresh air and a breather from the girls in my year?” Kurara asked jokily, pushing her hair out of her face with her hand, so that the wind didn’t cause it to completely cover her face. Hanamiya chuckled, and leaned back on his hands, looking upwards to the winter sky. It was a pretty dull day today, and the sky seemed as though it was about to pour buckets.

“So what have you done with Eita?” Hanamiya asked casually, not really sounding interested.

“Meh. I haven’t done anything. Eita’s the social twin. You know that.” Kurara answered carelessly. “Even if we’re twins, we’re very different.” It was true, Hanamiya thought to himself. Kurara was a girl and Eita was a guy. Even if their looks were very similar, their characters were very different. Kurara was more talkative, but got along better with the boys, and was anything but girly. She got along with a few girls, but Eita got along with everybody. Even if he was very quiet, and barely ever said his opinion, he was a very good listener, and his patience seemed never ending. While Kurara stated her emotions and feelings through words, Eita did that through expressions or body language. Calm big brother and hyper little sister, the usual. But what struck Hanamiya the most was the fact that Kurara seemed to think of herself as a boy at times. The fact she thought it was ok to use the same changing room as the boys was enough proof. 

Hanamiya didn’t say anything, so the two just sat in silence. They did this quite often, as Kurara was quite similar to Hanamiya when it came to liking to be alone and having some silence. After a long stretch of silence, Hanamiya was the first to speak.

“Hara told me you met Kiyoshi, Hyuga and their coach, Aida, was it, on your day at the arcade.” He stated without emotion, not looking away from the sky. Kurara raise her eyebrows as she looked at the older teenager.

“We did. So?” she asked cautiously. She never really had had this conversation before with Hanamiya and didn’t know what he would say to any of this.

“What did you think of him? Isn’t he your basketball idol or something?” The teenaged boy urged on. The indigo haired girl shrugged.

“He’s nice. He’s funny and he seems the type to always be in a good mood as well as always smiling. Happy-go-lucky sorta guy. Though I find that he’s also stubborn as heck.” She answered, crossing her arms to keep herself warm, as it was getting very chilly. Hanamiya laughed dryly, a short mocking sort of laugh.

“That; he is indeed.” He said darkly, an evil smirk ghosting his features. The younger girl said nothing. She didn’t want to get in a fight with Makoto. That would be an awful idea. “Neh, Kurara-chan.” The honorific made Kurara tense. She didn’t really like it when Hanamiya used honorifics to people, it just didn’t suit him. “Do you know what my type of girl is?” ok now that was a bit weird and a bit creepy. But what else could the girl do but shake her head? “I like stupid girls.” And that meant? “You’re pretty stupid, aren’t you?” how charming, how very charming. Wait, wut?

“Hah? Are you saying I’m your type of girl, even if it’s offensive? Anyway, Makoto-senpai, I don’t see how I am stupid, except if you mean my apparent lack of common sense.” Kurara tilted her head, a bland, yet worried, expression on her face. She didn’t know if she should take that as a compliment or an offense.

“You’re pretty stupid, as in; you act like a boy, and don’t seem to be able to tell the difference of strength between a bloke and chick. That’s what I’m saying. Also, the only reason you get good grades is because you study around five hours every day. You’re average in pretty much everything, except basketball.” Hanamiya stated flatly, closing his eyes, his smirk now very visible. Eh…creepy…And most definitely offensive.

“What do you mean I can’t tell the difference? I can keep my own ground against most guys.” The younger twin sibling retorted, started to get a little annoyed at her rude senior. Hanamiya opened his eyes to slits and looked at her with a menacing expression. 

“Let’s try out that theory, shall we?” he asked, not that it was a question, because the next second, Kurara found herself pinned to the floor of the roof. Both wrists were in the tight grasp of Hanamiya’s hands, and couldn’t move as the older boy’s weight kept her down. She didn’t realise the position she was in.

“Ahaha, very funny. I did say most guys, Makoto-senpai.” Kurara said sarcastically, but shut her mouth quickly as Hanamiya frowned deeply.

“I saw you speaking with those Seirin bastards. Kiyoshi was rather relaxed with you, even though you’re a stranger and a teammate of mine.” He hissed. Kurara was deeply confused on where this was going. “A bit too relaxed for my own liking.” He added again, and the indigo haired girl was starting to pray that the break would soon be over so she could get away from her angry captain and coach. “I’ll make sure to completely break him down so he’ll never think of talking to you again.” 

And with that Hanamiya let go of her and walked back inside. Kurara was very dazed, and it was wasn’t until large droplets of water came crashing onto her forehead that she got up and ran back to class.

 

“Eita! Stop slacking and get a move on!” Hanamiya shouted as he ran passed the younger boy. Not that anybody else was doing much better. It seemed that Hanamiya was the only one who was able to keep up with his own training, as everybody was slowly making their way into the arms of Death through a sea of sweat. If anybody ever told Yamazaki that Basketball was a laid back sport, it’d be a while before they saw the light of day again. Even Hara had stopped chewing his gum in fear of choking on it. Kurara could tell Hanamiya was pissed off because of her, but the only thing she could do was continue training as hard as she could. He would eventually calm down.

After endless court sprints, they all practiced shooting as well as their usual dirty tricks. Furuhashi messed up a couple of times while learning a new trick, and got an earful of scorning from Hanamiya about how he was too relaxed and the sort. Seto was the only one that day who had been able to stay out of Hanamiya’s blood red sight. 

“Ugh, FINE! Since you guys aren’t willing to work properly today let’s call it quits! But if you guys aren’t up to it tomorrow, then I’ll make sure you can’t stand for the rest of the day!” he shouted at them, when it was far past the end of activities. He made his was angrily to the changing rooms, and Kurara was sure she could see steam rising from the bloke. “And Kurara, you’re to clean up everything ON YOUR OWN!”

Ok, now that wasn’t fair. It was Hanamiya’s fault for getting all jealous and competitive of Kiyoshi, even when there was no competition. Kurara sighed irritably. Eita looked at her worriedly, but she shook her head, waving at him to go ahead and saying she’ll catch up soon. She started picking up the balls spread across the gym.

“Hah~ Hana-chan seems to be pretty pissed off Kurara~ what did you do~?” Hara’s voice asked from the side of the court. Kurara jumped, as she had thought everybody had left already. She scowled and shrugged.

“How should I know? He probably told you everything already, since you two get along so well.” Kurara grunted in annoyance, putting the basketballs in their baskets. 

“Well, that’s true.” Hara admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not pissed off at you as well.” Kurara spun round, and threw a ball at Hara’s face, the latter barely catching the ball to protect himself.

“Back off! I don’t need a gang of boys running after me out of sheer jealousy. There’s nothing attractive about me anyway! Makoto-senpai thinks I’m stupid, and apparently that’s his type of girl! If so, what the heck is your type of girl?!” Kurara said angrily, hands on hips. Hara’s unhappy expression turned to one of amusement. 

“I like girls with nice legs.” He said with a tilted head. Kurara narrowed her eyes. Oh that was just great. So she was a stupid girl with nice legs. If it wasn’t such an annoying situation, she’d take the ‘nice legs’ part as a compliment. What was she, a Barbie doll? Kurara looked down, and decided that from now she was going to wear proper trackies instead of boys’ basketball shorts. “You have very nice legs thanks to playing such hard core basketball. You should wear more shorts and skirts~” 

“Argh shut up, pervert-senpai!” Kurara screamed as she threw another ball at this face, this time making it collide with his forehead. The older teenager fell backwards onto his back with a pained groaned. Kurara quickly put away the rest of the balls, and stood over Hara’s form on the ground. “You and Makoto-senpai should quit it. I’m not interested in having guys chase me for stupid reasons. And anyway, Kiyoshi-san is a nice guy, and isn’t as perverted as you and Makoto-senpai. Have a good evening.” She finished stoically, walking into the girls’ changing room. Hara sat up and looked at where she left. 

“Man, this is not going to be easy.” He pouted, making another bubble with his gum in the process.


	4. Eita Aimaru

Eita Aimaru  
Eita observed his sister worriedly. He didn’t know what happened between her, Hara and Hanamiya, but they had been very hostile to each other, especially between Hara and Hanamiya. Kurara had refused to talk about it, and that only made it worse for Eita. It was once in a blue that his beloved sister wouldn’t tell him something.

 

He sighed quietly to himself as he shot at the basket in the basketball courts near his house. It was Sunday afternoon, and his sister had wanted to stay at home, wanting to study. He doubted that was the reason. She probably wanted to evade the possibility of meeting Hara or Hanamiya.

 

He made an annoyed sound of frustration as his shot missed. Man, he was really tense today. He could get a single shot in.

 

“Heh, seems you’re having a bad day.” A voice said from the edge of the courts. Eita turned to the voice, not sure who to expect. He saw a teenaged boy, which he knew. Well, of course he would know Imayoshi Shoichi. Much like Kiyoshi Teppei was Kurara’s idol; Imayoshi Shoichi was Eita’s idol. “Although you do seem like a very good shooter.” The glassed teenager stated.

 

Eita stayed quiet, not really sure what to do. Yeah he looked up to Imayoshi in Basketball, but never had met him in real life. Imayoshi walked past him, and picked up the ball, passing it to him.

 

“What’s your name?” he asked curiously, a seemingly normal smirk or smile on his face.

 

“Aimaru Eita. It’s nice to meet you, Imayoshi-san.” He said gently, as his voice wasn’t exactly a loud one.

 

“Eh? You know my name? I don’t remember meeting you. And I usually always remember names.” Imayoshi said, his grin widening, as he placed his hands on his hips. Eita stayed quiet for another moment, thinking what he should say without sounding really creepy.

 

“I’ve seen you play before.” He said simply. He’d seen him play a few times before, that was true, but he was also a major fan of Imayoshi’s. He sighed quietly to himself. He was far too quiet for his own liking. Not that he could change the way he was of course.

 

“Ah, I see! Well, would you like to play a one on one with me? I’ve got nothing to do at the moment.” Imayoshi offered. Eita smiled a little and nodded.

 

 

Eita was very much impressed, as Imayoshi dodged him and made scored again. The score so far was 8-10 to Imayoshi, and the Eita was truly trying his best. The taller teenager panted, his indigo hair sticking to his forehead with sweat, droplets dripping from his chin. Imayoshi was quite in the same shape, but maybe looking a little less exhausted.

 

“Hey, you’re pretty good. I’m your senior yet you’re keeping your ground better than I’d expected.” He said with a pleasant smirk. Eita took that as a compliment but that didn’t make him falter. Instead, he went for the ball with a sudden change of speed, a whacked it out of Imayoshi’s hand. He had been hesitant but had managed all the same. He was even shocked at himself. “You know…I could have stopped that if I wanted.” Eita stopped and looked at the older boy. Even if he was still smirking, Eita knew he was serious. “You’re a very good player, and you’ve got lots of potential. But you’re way to hesitant. You’ll never be able to get better if you stay that way. Playing safe is good, but at times there’s a need to be reckless.” Imayoshi told the indigo haired boy. The latter was shocked at hearing such advice from his idol. Not only had he expected to even meet the glassed teenager, but never that he would actually give him advice.

 

It’s not like Eita didn’t know is weaknesses, he had just never really thought of improving them. He didn’t like to hurt others, and didn’t like to make mistakes out of line. He pulled the front of his top to his face, wiping a bit of his sweat off. He said nothing and just nodded.

 

“Hey, can I ask ya something?” Imayoshi asked after a bit of silence. Eita nodded. “Why do you look up to me?” Eita looked surprised at the statement. Damn, was he really that readable? He started flustering, fidgeting with the ball noticeably. “Ah, don’t be shy about it. I can read people better than the average person~” The glassed boy grinned, waiting patiently for an answer. Eita thought deeply about his words.

 

“I like your style of Basketball. Unlike me, you take risks. You do the things people don’t want to do. I admire that.” He uttered quietly. Imayoshi raised his eyebrows, his expression one of mild surprise.

 

“Really? It’s not often I hear that~” Imayoshi chimed after a short silence. Eita gave a small smile. “But hey, it’s just really about confidence building, isn’t it? I wouldn’t mind helping you with that. What school do you go to Eita-kun?” Eita was very pleased when Imayoshi called him by his first name. He was a little more reluctant to tell him his school, but he didn’t want to lie.

 

“Kirisaki Daiichi.” He answered flatly, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible.

 

“Ah, I see! So you go to the same school as Hanamiya? We used to attend the same Middle School!” Imayoshi said cheerfully. Eita didn’t think he could have been any happier, to spend time with the person he looked up to the most.

 

 

Kurara sighed with a bored attitude. Eita sighed happily. They really were different. They both sat on the coach of their living room. One wanted to bawl her eyes out, the other felt like he could jump over the moon.

 

‘Argh…Where the hell is this gonna go? With two desperate dudes competing with a guy I just met and who’s my idol, anything could go wrong.’ Kurara thought (whined) to herself, the feeling of despair swallowing her whole.

 

‘I’m really looking forward to meeting up with Imayoshi-san soon.’ Eita thought happily to himself, remembering that he had Imayoshi’s email address and phone number.

 

They real are a bit different. Just a bit.


	5. Seirin vs Kirisaki Daiichi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE SEIRIN VS KIRISAKI DAIICHI MATCH. DON’T READ. THE ENDING HAS SLIGHTLY BEEN ALTERED.

The Kirisaki Daiichi team walked to the large Gymnasium. Truth be told, Kurara was really excited. She hadn’t had a chance to play in any of the other matches, and even if she wasn’t going to play in any of these matches, she couldn’t help but look forward to it all. Today was a special day too, since they were playing against Seirin! Kurara had kept in contact with Kiyoshi since their encounter at Maji Burger or whatever it was called, and had since then learned a lot about her crush.

“-rara. Kurara!” Hanamiya’s voice echoed in her ears as she daydreamed about Kiyoshi. She jolted and looked at her black haired senpai who was walking in front of her. “Are you even listening?” he growled. The indigo haired girl gave a small pout, mumbling an apology. “Tsch. Whatever. Just don’t let your emotions get in the way of your play.” 

‘As if I will play.’ Kurara thought, not understanding why Hanamiya was still angry at her. Ever since that event on the roof, Hanamiya had been somewhat patronizing, and had put a lot of pressure on the younger girl. Hara often lurked around her, but that didn’t really bother Kurara as much, because he had done that before anyway. Eita glanced at his younger sister, knowing of her situation. He himself had been having great one-on-one matches with Imayoshi on the weekends , and had even gotten a little more confidence, but still not enough to be a reckless player like Hanamiya was expecting him to become.

As they arrived to their appointed locker rooms, Hanamiya made sure that Kurara went in her own locker room, and also that Hara didn’t try to peak. That girl needed to learn to be self-conscious on the fact that she was a girl!

The indigo haired girl changed fairly quickly, and waited patiently for the boys to have gotten changed. Kurara didn’t understand what the big deal of changing with boys or not was. As long as she didn’t completely strip and wore the uniform correctly, it was ok to be in the same changing room as the boys’ right? Well, according to Hanamiya, it seemed not to be the case. The Aimaru girl really couldn’t understand why he was being so bossy. It’s not like she had done anything bad or wrong. 

She was called in by Eita, and she sat among the other team members, listening carefully to Hanamiya’s plan.

“I’ll swap Furuhashi and Yamazaki with Eita and Kurara if I see the need. I don’t want to bring Seirin up too high, but I don’t want them to have it easy either.” The Kirisaki Daiichi Captain concluded. The twins nodded in understanding. He didn’t usually say this, so excitement and anticipation entered their minds and spread through their whole body like some virus. Even if this could be called an exaggeration, they really did feel this way. “Right, let’s go warm up!”

The Kirisaki Daiichi team made their way onto the basketball court for their warm up. Seirin was also there. Kurara’s heart skipped a beat when she saw Kiyoshi. Ah, he looked wonderful as always she thought fondly, until Hara’ s elbows collided with her ribs. She gasped, and glared at her senpai. The latter blew a bubble in his gum, grinning.

“Nuhuh sweety~ I’m not letting you fawn over that Iron Heart.” He chimed. Kurara put her hands on her slender hips in an annoyed manner.

“Go say those things to somebody who actually wants to hear them, Kazuya-senpai.” She retorted flatly. As they stepped onto the court, they went to their side of the court. As they were doing the basic warm up, Eita noticed a uniform he knew. He saw Imayoshi and his team. He couldn’t help but feel happy, since he hadn’t expected to see his idol to come see their match. On the other hand, Kurara was getting annoyed. Here and there she could hear the usual, ‘wait, isn’t that player a girl?’. It really pissed her off. 

“Go ahead and show those idiots what you’re made of.” Hanamiya encouraged her, giving an out-of-character gentle pat on the shoulder. The girl gave a grin, and eagerly fulfilled her captain’s suggestion. She jumped from the three-point line, and made a two-handed dunk which shook the basket strongly. Even the Seirin players turned to see the warm up shot. Kurara felt very proud with herself. She had been working on that move for ages. The impact had been made, and she could see that some of the weaker looking Seirin players were a little shaken up. She walked up to Hanamiya with a huge grin, though she noticed that a basketball had rolled in his direction. The black haired teenager had also noticed this, and picked it up, turning to the Seirin team. “This is your ball, right?” he asked, an honest expression on his face. Ah, he was acting again, Eita noted from his position. Kiyoshi walked up to him.

“My bad.” Hanamiya passed him the ball gently. “Thank you.” The shorter male gave a smile.

“You’re welcome.” He replied. He stared at the other teenager. “Hey…I’m glad you look so healthy.” He commented, and Kurara knew he was saying it sarcastically.

“Yeah. It’s thanks to you.” Kurara could lose herself in that voice. It was so kind, even when speaking to the person who potentially ruined his life. Hanamiya gave a small smirk, yet as he turned to leave, the Seirin Captain came up, Hyuga or something like that, Eita remembered, standing next to his sister.

“Wait a sec!” he called out. Hanamiya turned back to the duo. “What you did last year…Don’t tell me you forgot about it.” The scowl on the captain’s face was deep, and he seemed almost angry. Hanamiya lowered his head slightly, his hair covering his face almost completely.

“Hey, hey, that’s too cruel.” He murmured, enough for the few around him to hear. The tone and aura coming from the dark haired captain sent shivers down the indigo twins. They had only heard that voice when he was mocking his enemy, like a predator teasing its prey. “You’re still accusing me for it?” Hanamiya raised his head, an evil look in his eyes that even shook Kurara’s wits with anxiousness, and heck, she was on the same team as the guy! “I don’t know anything. He just got hurt all by himself.” Those words somehow pierced Kurara through and through, and she suddenly felt guilty. She didn’t even know why; maybe it was the furious expression on Hyuga’s face.

“Bastard…!” he growled.

“Wow, you’re even shittier than I’d heard.” A red headed player came up. Eita recognised him. Kagami Taiga. He was the Power Forward ace. And that shorter blue headed player must therefore by Kuroko Tetsuya. “No matter what dirty tricks you use,”

“We won’t lose.” Kuroko finished the sentence. Kurara, being Kurara, found it amusing how they finished each other’s sentences like one would expect from twins.

“If you think you can crush us, go ahead and try.” Seirin’s Ace challenged. Hanamiya chuckled at that and gave an amused smirk. 

“Wow, wow, what an attitude.” After a minute, he added, “I know you guys…you’re the rumoured 1st year duo.” The hostility somewhat peeked at that point, and Kurara felt like she was going to suffocate with the pressure. “Well, watch out. Let’s hope nothing happens…” Kirisaki Daiichi’s coach and captain said gently, but it truly shook the poor twins into even moving a little away from him as he passed. “Why’re you two so scared?” he asked, genuinely curious. The four Seirin players heard him as well.

“Cause you’re spooky when you say things like that, Makoto-senpai!” the girl stated, a nervous expression on her smiling face as she stepped a little behind her brother for a mock protection. Eita didn’t seem amused to being used as a shield against his captain. Hanamiya rolled his eyes and walked back to the rest of the team. The younger twin glanced to the Seirin players. She grinned at Kiyoshi happily, but looked a little offended at the somewhat glaring looks from other players, even the shorty with no presence was glaring. “What’s with that? I never did anything to you guys.”

“That doesn’t matter! You’re still on the Kirisaki Daiichi team, and we’ll beat you!” Kagami stepped up, standing on his side of the court, face to face with Kurara. The latter wasn’t really paying attention at him at all, instead she placed her hand flat on top of her head, and did a motion to Kagami’s head and back. “….What are you doing?” Kurara gave a cheeky grin.

“Hehehe…I’m taller than you.” She said with a dumb grin. Kagami’s expression deadpanned, and he looked at her up and down, before taking a shocked step backwards. 

“H-How-…How tall are you?”

“I’m 191 centimetres tall~ Or 6 feet 3,” she chimed happily obviously pleased with herself.

“It’s only one centimetre!” the red headed retorted furiously. Kurara laughed in fake pride as the Seirin ace’s face turned red. Red as his hair, Eita noted, before she grabbed the back of his sister’s top and dragged her back to the warm up.

“Ah! Eita lemme go! I can walk on my own!” she complained loudly as always.

Soon, the whistle blew, and the teams went to their benches, getting ready for the match. The Aimaru twins were going to be on bench for the time being, while Seto, as usual, went to sleep. He was like that; unless he was needed, he just slept.

“We’ll definitely win! Seirin!” Seirin shouted at their side. Hara’s bubble gum popped on his face due to him having jumped from the sudden outburst.

“They’re so annoying that it’s making me dizzy.” He groaned, prying the bubble gum off of his face. Nobody messes with Hara and his bubble gum. Kurara had learned that early. Yamazaki on the other hand, kicked the bench Seto was sleeping on angrily.

“Hey, the match is about to start! Wake up!” he shouted. Hara sighed.

“He’s not even a starter, so why don’t you leave him?” he shrugged, finally getting the bubble gum off. Furuhashi’s blank, dull eyes looked over to the enthusiastic Seirin. 

“Seriously, I feel bad for them. The more they try, the more tragic a result will await them in the end.” He commented. Kurara bit her lip slightly as she looked to the floor sadly. She didn’t like the fact that her team cheated. Hanamiya noticed that. 

“Don’t get all soppy like that, love-chan. I’ll probably let you two play during the match at some point anyway, so keep the team spirit up.” He teased, expecting a massive outburst from the girl. He got what he expected.

“Don’t call me that!” Kurara exclaimed.

“Why not? ‘Ai’ also means love, right?” 

“Yeah, but the kanji is different!” 

“What does it matter?”

“It makes all the difference.” Hanamiya gave a small laugh, patting the taller girl on the head.

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t look depressed. I want the opposition to look like that, not my own team.” He said nonchalantly, joining the other starters. What did Kurara answer with? Nothing, that’s what. She just watched her friends walk onto the court and do the usual greeting. It was upsetting, really, to see people she considered important play this way. At least they enjoyed it; that was the one thing that kept her from fighting against it. 

“Good luck…” she murmured.

~~

“The 2nd quarter is over. Now we’ll enter a 10 minute break. After that we’ll start the second half: The 3rd quarter.” The announcement echoed through the stadium. Everybody was excited for the 3rd quarter to start as they left their seats to get drinks and such. All, except Kurara. Her expression was horrified. What were they thinking? Were they trying to kill him? The second Furuhashi had slammed his elbow into Kiyoshi’s face, the whole world seemed to turn a dirty murky colour. It wasn’t because it was Kiyoshi was the victim, although that made it worse, but it was because that hit, if done correctly, could have killed him, or at least given him a bad concussion. It was like a bad dream where you see something horrible happening, but you can’t do anything, you can’t see anything, you can only watch. When she saw Hanamiya approaching, she ignored the pissed off expression which would have made anybody run a mile to get away from him and grabbed his basketball top by the front.

“What were you thinking?! We never practiced that! Were you trying to kill him?!” She said loudly, but not enough to catch anybody’s attention except for her team’s, Seirin’s and Touou’s. Hanamiya glared up at her.

“Let go, now. Don’t show such disrespect to your senpai.” He growled, his voice colder than ice. Kurara wanted to reply, but a gentle touch on her shoulder made her let go of her captain. Eita knew how to get to Kurara. “If you can’t take it, then quit the team.” Those words shook Kurara. Should she? She clenched her jaw, and walked away from the team.

“Where’re you going, Kurara?” Hara called after her.

“Out. The air’s too stuffy!” She shouted back, breaking out into a run, just to get away from them for a while. Eita let out a quiet sigh.

“Are you going to complain too?” The cold voice growled deeply at him. The calmer twin shook his head. No. He had nothing to say.

Kurara sat on a bench outside. She looked up at the blue sky, liking the gentle breeze. Even if it was starting to get a little chilly, it felt nice to her. She needed to be alone for a little while, just to clear her head. She checked her phone. She still had a few minutes…A thought popped into her mind. She sprung up in answer to it, and went back to the large gymnasium again, running so that she didn’t waste any time. She panted slightly as she reached the place she had been looking for. She went to knock on the door, but hesitated. What if they closed the door in her face? What if they didn’t believe her? What if they thought it was all part of their plan or something? No, stop. She was over thinking things again. She knocked on the door gently. It opened, and Seirin’s coach, Aida she believed, head appeared. Seeing the indigo haired girl she frowned.

“You’re in Kirisaki Daiichi, aren’t you?” she said with an angry tone, opening the door wide. The rest of her team turned their looks to her. Their glares were so intensified that Kurara almost wanted to take a step back. She took a quiet breath.

“Yeah, I am.” She nodded in answer to Seirin’s Coach. 

“What do you want?” Hyuga asked with an angry voice. Kurara couldn’t help but notice the bruise on his elbow. She then saw Kiyoshi next to him, who wasn’t frowning, but seemed confused to why she was there. He had a plaster on his forehead, and he was bruised everywhere. The sight pained the younger girl, and tears welled up in her eyes. She bowed lowly. 

“I’m sorry!” she exclaimed, shocking all there. Kiyoshi stood up, not understanding why she was apologising. “I…I can’t give an excuse for my team’s actions. I…I’m just sorry for everything they did.” She stood up straight, her head slightly lowered, trying to hide her tear filled eyes. 

“You really think ‘sorry’ cuts it? You think it’s that easy to forgive?” the glassed captain hissed, his scowl deeply carved into his brow. Kurara knew he’d say that, but she couldn’t help but feel guilt.

“Of course I don’t! ‘Sorry’ won’t ever be enough! It won’t heal Kiyoshi-san’s knee, nor will it take back all of the horrid things Makoto-senpai said! But I’m still…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. Her voice stuttered and broke, tears poured down her cheeks. It was painful for her to have her friends do things like that to others. She took another deep breath, trying to calm down. “But I’m still sorry!” she exclaimed loudly, her shoulders shaking slightly as her tears didn’t stop running down her cheeks. Seirin was taken aback. 

“…Do you dislike Hanamiya and the others?” Izuki asked her. She shook her head a little.

“No.”  
“Do you dislike basketball?” Kuroko asked.

“No.”

“Do you agree with what they do?” Kagami asked.

“No.”

“Then why do you go along with it?” Hyuga asked angrily. They all had their questions, she understood that.

“Because I respect Makoto-senpai, Kazuya-senpai, Hiroshi-senpai, Kentaro-senpai and Kojiro-senpai.”

“Why?” Riko asked, looking sceptical. Kurara bit the inside of her lip, nervous. What was she supposed to say? More like, how was she supposed to say it? 

“…They’re my friends. They’re dear to me…” she murmured.

“How can people like that be your friends?” Hyuga shouted. “They hurt people, because they find it funny!”

“I know! Trust me I know! It hurts every time! But whatever I think, whatever I say, I can’t change them! They’re not how they seem! Outside of basketball, they’re really kind and funny and…and…” she answered, more tears running down her face, her whole body shaking. She wiped her face with her jacket sleeve, yet froze when she felt something, or someone touch her head. It was big, and warm. She looked at the person, and saw Kiyoshi smiling at her. That smile made Kurara feel calm, and the tears stopped pouring from her eyes.

“Why are you apologising? You haven’t done anything wrong.” He asked kindly, the warm smile not leaving his expression.

“B-Because my team won’t ever apologise. So I’m apologising on their behalf…” she answered quietly. The warm hand reminded her of her father’s hand, as well as her brother’s. It was the sort of gesture that could calm her in any situation. Kiyoshi gave a full grin.

“Thank you. It means a lot.” He replied to her answer. Kurara blushed a little, her face tinted a light pink. Kuroko walked up to her.

“I don’t understand how you can be friends with somebody like Hanamiya…but I understand that you are upset about your friends doing things like that.” He said with a sympathetic smile. Kurara’s eyes widened. That’s right. Kuroko was in Teiko Middle School with the Generation of Miracles. They must’ve all been friends. She gave a small smile to him back. He must’ve suffered too at some point. 

“Hmph. You’re not like them, so I’ll take the apology.” The Seirin Captain said with a small pout. There was a general sound of agreement in the room, and Kurara felt happiness enter her heart. She felt at ease, as if she had been accepted as an actual acquaintance and not just an enemy.

“Thank you…” she said happily, and huge grin on her face. An announcement was made, requesting everybody to return to their seats and for the teams to get ready. “Ah! I have to go or I’m going to be late! Sorry for disturbing and thank you!” she exclaimed, rushing back to her own team’s locker.

“Well, she’s certainly energetic.” Koganei commented. Kiyoshi laughed.

“Guess so.

~

Hanamiya tapped his foot angrily. Where was she? She could go wherever she wanted, but she had to come back at least! The black haired teenager glanced in the hallway. He noticed her running down.

“Sorry!” she apologised as she ran up to the bench, panting a little. She got a hit on the head. “Owie….” She whined, holding her head.

“You’re late!” her captain scorned, looking up to her. Ok, Kurara had to admit, she found it cute that Hanamiya was 12 centimetres shorter than she was, yet still had the possibility to be intimidating. It was cute. Hara noticed something, and pointed it out.

“Kurara, have you been crying?” he asked, sounding a little worried. Kurara looked confused. “Your eyes are bloodshot and your cheeks are red.” Ah that made sense.

“Um, yeah...” she nodded, a little embarrassed, but not too much. Eita looked worried, which was his way of asking why. “I…went to Seirin’s locker room.”

“You did what?” Hanamiya asked, his voice outraged. 

‘Sheesh, I hit a nerve.’ Kurara dreaded. At this point the Seirin players arrived. Bad Boy Hanamiya glared at the Iron Heart, the latter blinking at him in confusion and smiled. That seemed to piss him off even more. “I told you not to go near them! Why did you?”

“I went to apologise.”

“Apologise? What for?” Furuhashi asked blankly.

“For you guys being douchebags on the court. That’s what.” Kurara said with an exaggerated pout. Yamazaki raised his eyebrows.

“Why d’you do that?” he asked, confused about it all.

“Because I’m a nice person.” She huffed, placing her hands on her hips. Hanamiya face palmed.

“Argh, whatever…” he murmured, walking up to Kurara and properly standing in front of her with his arms crossed. “I absolutely forbid you to go near them. Especially that idiot. Got it?” he growled. Kurara grinned in response.

“Yes mum-senpai.” She joked. That gained her another whack on the head, although it was gentler than before and a little playful. She sat down next to her brother, and touched her head slightly. She could still feel the feeling of Kiyoshi’s hand on her head lingering. Eita gave a small knowing smile. Hara walked passed her, with a slightly displeased look. 

“We discussed on how to beat the Vanishing Drive.” He informed her. Kurara looked up to him, giving a small encouraging grin.

“Kay then. Good luck~”

Is what she had said. But it turned out be somewhat of a failure. Kurara and Eita laughed a little when Yamazaki started arguing with Hara.

“Hey, you were totally wrong! He passed us no problem!” the redhead shouted as he popped Hara’s bubble gum angrily. The light purple haired boy gave a goofy grin.

“Sorry~ my bad, my bad. Looks like I was wrong.” He said goofily. Hah, typical Kazuya-senpai, the twins noted with amused smiles.

“Don’t kid around!” but it was getting a little out of hand now, with Yamazaki losing his temper and all.

“Stop! I wasn’t expecting much in the first place.” Hanamiya ordered them. It really amazed Eita how he could control the loud number 8 no problem. He turned to the benches. Kurara knew who he was going to call out, so she went to get the small box of wax in Seto’s bag. “Kentaro! Out!!” 

“Zzz-pop!” Seto’s small sleeping bubble thing popped as he woke up. The number 5 stood up and stretched, his joints cracking and popping in places. He walked up to the desk.

“Substitution, please~~~” he requested, yawning a little after wards. Kurara waited for Seto to request for the wax. 

“Kirisaki Daiichi’s member change.” The loudspeakers announced. Seto was about to step on the court. Eita gave a small cough, as if to remind him. Seto noticed it.

“Oops, my bad. He~y.” He addressed Kurara. “Grab me that wax.” She gave him the wax that she had already been holding, Seto giving a small nod of thanks. He pushed his hair back, smoothing out his hair, revealing his forehead. “Alright, my eyes are wide open.” He smirked, stepping onto the court after handing the wax back to Kurara.

“Go get ‘em, Kentaro-senpai.” Kurara encouraged, knowing exactly how the team would start playing now. She laughed at the usual hair conversation that Hara made with Seto. She liked these little moments of normality. 

As the game moved on, she supported her team all the way, Eita also shouting his support every so often. They cheered Hanamiya on when he stole the ball, and even more when he made a shot. The next he did a steal, and Hara scored, the twins also supported them. It didn’t matter at this point what they had done to Seirin before. They were playing honestly. Or at least more honestly than before, and that just made them happy.

Eita glanced to the audience, and saw Imayoshi. He seemed to be explaining something to his team, and they all looked shock, except for that blue headed guy. Aomine, was it? The ace. Eita imagined Imayoshi was explaining the situation. He smugly looked back to his own captain, who stole the ball again. He was truly proud of his captain’s abilities. Even if he used them for the wrong at times, he still admired him as his captain, coach, friend and senpai. 

Kurara remembered the time that Seto told them that his IQ was 160. She was amazed, but even more to hear than Hanamiya’s IQ was even higher than his, even saying he was no match for him. Since that time, Kurara’s respect and loyalty for Hanamiya became infinite. Not because he had something she couldn’t have, but because he didn’t brag about it, and because he kept on working hard in basketball, cleaning up his team so that they kept up to his expectations. She…truly admired him.

Seirin had fallen into his trap. Like bugs in a spider’s web. Almost like a puppeteer holding his puppets’ strings, Hanamiya knew exactly what they were going to do, as if he was ordering them to do it. 

“The 3rd quarter is over.” The announcement made everybody breathe again. Kurara and Eita hadn’t realised they had been holding their breath in the last few minutes of the 3rd quarter. Kurara had to contain her excitement when she saw the lead they had. Although she didn’t completely wipe out Seirin as losers. They had Kiyoshi. They had the 1st year duo. It’s too bad that Point Guard was practically useless against Hanamiya and Seto now, and that Hyuga wasn’t making any 3-pointers, otherwise they’d be in the lead. 

When Hanamiya stepped off the court, Kurara practically pounced on him before Eita could stop her. 

“Makoto-senpai! You’re amazing!” She exclaimed, almost strangling Hanamiya. He tried to tap her arm to inform her he couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t notice.

“Kurara-chan, Makoto can’t breathe.” Seto said sheepishly. Kurara finally realised and let go of him, apologising.

“It’s alright.” Hanamiya murmured, regained his posture. Eita, being more observant than Kurara, noticed the small blush on his captain’s pale skin. His gave a small smile. Unfortunately, Hara had also noticed it, and he looked a little annoyed. Until Kurara passed her attention from fawning over the other players to fussing over him.

“Kazuya-senpai, your shots were brilliant!” she squealed, gaining a pleased grin from her senpai as blew another bubble in his bubble gum. Even if she didn’t quite pounce on him, a compliment from Kurara made Hara’s day anytime. Also, he didn’t really quite want to die of suffocation.

Kurara barely listened to Hanamiya’s voice as she glanced over to Seirin. The Point Guard, Izuki looked frustrated, while the other members look like they were at a loss. Until Kuroko spoke. Kurara’s keen eyes noticed that he spoke as if he was planning something. Something told her things were about to get properly serious. A small nudge to the ribs made her aware that Hanamiya was speaking to her. Eita sighed. His sister was easily distracted.

“Kurara, you were watching Seirin. What’s your feeling on their morale?” he asked. Kurara raised an eyebrow, not understanding why he was asking her this. 

“They haven’t given up. And…I think that Kuroko guy has an idea.” She said, her indigo eyes glancing to them. 

“Right. Still, there’s nothing they can really do at this point. Like I said earlier, one more push, and Kiyoshi’s a goner, so he shouldn’t be a worry to us.” The grey eyed boy commented. Cold dread seeped quickly into Kurara’s senses, like water being absorbed by sand. 

“Makoto-senpai, do you mean you’ll…?” Eita asked quietly, surprising everybody, even Hanamiya himself. He give a smirk and shrugged.

“Who knows. There’ll probably be no need.” He said, the five players standing up and going onto the court. The 4th quarter started, and Kurara watched every of the players’ movements, trying to work out what Kuroko was going to do. Eita could see everything that Kuroko was doing, but couldn’t understand what it was that he was planning. 

Izuki had just made a pass to Hyuga, and as it seemed that Hanamiya was about to make another steal, Kuroko suddenly whacked the ball in Kagami’s direction. All of Kirisaki Daiichi’s members froze as Kagami scored. Neither Kurara nor Eita understood what had happened. Hanamiya couldn’t have made a mistake, right? Then…what was it? The twins saw the look of angered comprehension on his face. He glared in their direction, and they flinched. What had they done?

Hanamiya pointed his thumb backwards, before shouting something to Yamazaki and Furuhashi. Eita understood, and walked up to the desk. Kurara was slower to understand.

“Two substitutions, please.” He asked kindly. The man there nodded.

“Kirisaki Daiichi’s member change.” He announced. Yamazaki and Furuhashi walked up to the two, and they gave each other quick swap over high fives.

“What’s going on, Makoto-senpai?” Kurara asked. 

“Kuroko is moving independently.” He hissed. Kurara and Eita immediately understood. If one practices everyday with another, they start being able to read their body movements, or patterns, but also, things like trust, or some sort of relationship is established through playing team sports. “Trust. Friendship. What is this, a melodramatic movie? I’m not letting this slide.” He growled. He motioned to Hara. “Hara, take Yamazaki’s place. Eita, go as Power Forward, and Kurara, do what you usually do.” The three nodded, and moved to their places. “How quickly do you think you can get used to their movements?” The Kirisaki Daiichi Captain asked the indigo haired girl. She gave a quick glance to the clock. 9:35 minutes. 

“Gimme 35 seconds. If I don’t get it by then, I’ll just mark Kuroko directly.” Hanamiya nodded, seemingly satisfied. They could her the few grumbles coming from the audience.

What was a girl doing in a boys’ basketball team. Kurara felt her annoyance surge. Hanamiya frowned. He didn’t need an annoyed Kurara right now.

“Ignore them. They don’t know what you’re capable of, idiot.” He told her.

The game continued. Kurara ran with the rest of the team, watching all of the members’ movements. They all played like they usually did, so Kurara knew how to match them. The question was Kuroko. 

She watched as the baby blue haired teenager smacked a second ball away from Hanamiya. Kuroko’s trick wasn’t difficult, especially for reckless people. Step in front of the ball’s path, and hit it a different direction. It was pretty much the usual Misdirection. It was only high in precision and perfectly timed. But there was only two directions he could possibly hit it. For example, if the ball was thrown by Hyuga to Izuki, and Hanamiya stood in the way, there were only two possibilities left; Kiyoshi or Kagami. Therefore, the easiest thing to do would be marked whoever was free.

9:15 minutes.

She glanced to Eita. He glanced back. She motioned to Kagami, who was free. Hyuga was running up, dribbling the ball. Eita rushed to mark Kagami. Hyuga passed the ball to Izuki. Hanamiya predicted this and got in the way of the ball. Kurara ran up to Kiyoshi’s direction. Kuroko hit the ball. It went towards Kiyoshi, the only free player. 

Kurara turned round, her back to Kiyoshi. She caught the ball, all though it hit her hard in the chest. Ouch, she was going to feel that tomorrow. Never mind. She was feeling it now. She crossed her arms over her chest, trapping the ball. She let out a pained breath, and bounced the ball, rushing forward away from Kiyoshi as she dribbled it down the court. Eita was soon by her side, but so was Kagami. She ran fast, so Kagami had to run fast with her as well. Eita jumped in the way of Hyuga as he tried to follow them, making a screen out. When Kurara arrived at the 3-point line, she stopped suddenly. Kagami tried to stop as well, but slid, almost falling over. Taking in a deep breath, Kurara jumped and shot the ball at the basket before Kagami could steady himself properly and mark her. 

The ball fell through the hoop. 

Kurara didn’t waste any time, and ran back across the court, getting congratulating pats from her teammates as they all got ready. She got into place, standing near Kiyoshi. The latter looked surprised. Hanamiya sent him a dirty look, unhappy that Kurara was near him, but left it at that. 

Of course, just because this technique worked once, it doesn’t mean it’ll work every time.

Everything was at a high speed. 

7:32 minutes.

Everybody was marking someone at this point. Kuroko was on Eita, and Kurara had the ball. Kiyoshi was marking her. She had her back turned to him, glancing over her shoulder as she bounced the ball. He watched her carefully. This was the moment that she had wanted, to play against Kiyoshi. She bounced the ball again before making a breakout run to the right of Kiyoshi, running across the shorter distance of the two sides of the court. 

Kiyoshi kept onto her. She, again, stopped, and ran the opposite direction. She then stopped again and ran forward diagonally, losing Kiyoshi altogether. Change of pace wasn’t hard to do, it was the timing that was tricky.

She saw Eita in the corner of her eye. He ran a little ahead of her and made a number with his hand. Four fingers. Number four. Hanamiya. Pass to Hanamiya. She made to pass to Eita. She saw Kuroko running in front of Eita quickly. A normal person wouldn’t have noticed, but Eita had, and had forewarned his sister. Nothing changed in Kurara’s posture, only her arms direction. Instead of passing to Eita, on her left, front, she passed to Hanamiya, on her right, diagonally. He was closer to the 3-point line that the others. He was mildly surprised to receive the ball, but made a quick shot all the same. 

6: 42 minutes.

Kuroko stole the ball again. This time it went to Izuki, who passed it to Kagami. The latter jumped, and dunked. 

Hara passed the ball to Eita, after a couple of seconds of dribbling, passed it to Hanamiya. Kiyoshi was already waiting on their end. This annoyed the black haired boy, as he hadn’t seen him move that quickly from one end to the other. He was suddenly marked by both Kagami and Kuroko, and was forced to pass it to Hara. The latter shot, but narrowly missed. 

It was a fight between Seirin’s centre and Kirisaki Daiichi’s number 3. 

“Rebound!” Seto shouted to Kurara. She was a little far off from under the hoop. Kiyoshi jumped easily, since no one was there to stop him. But Kurara made a small run up, and jumped right in front of him. Due to the run up, not only did she jump higher, but faster as well. Eita was already at the 3-point line, his hand up. Kurara violently hit the ball with a fisted hand, smacking it with the back of it. It went a good distance, bouncing in front of Eita, before the latter made a quick release shot. Three more points gained for Kirisaki Daiichi. Kiyoshi watched in shock as Kurara landed clumsily besides him, having just dodged falling onto him, and instead fell onto Seto’s back.

“Oops! Sorry Kentaro-senpai!” she apologised sheepishly, as they all got back in their places.

5:31 minutes.

Kuroko hit the ball to Kiyoshi. The brown haired boy passed it to his glassed captain, the latter making a shot. Again, he missed. Kurara was behind Hara. She noticed something.

Seto was standing in front of Kiyoshi, and Hara behind him. Trapping his bad knee. Kurara felt pain in her stomach when she saw this. Kiyoshi’s wide eyes showed in how much pain he was too. Kurara stiffened up a lip. She jumped and caught the rebound, passing it to Eita. They made another shot.

Kurara walked passed Hanamiya, panting slightly. 

“Protecting, trusting, etc…” he murmured. Kurara glanced at the shorter teenager. “Honestly, it’s so annoying.” Kurara felt a shiver run down her back like electricity, giving her the same paralysing effect. The other Kirisaki Daiichi members also seemed to be affected, even Yamazaki and Furuhashi had gone quiet from their previous support. Hanamiya’s attention was all on Kiyoshi, as far as Eita could tell. The death glared moved down to the man’s knee. Fear struck Kurara. No…

“Seirin High School’s time out.” Said the announcer. Relief flowed through both the twins, but annoyance resonated around Hanamiya. They went over to their bench and sat down. They stayed in silence. Hanamiya’s mood didn’t lighten up at all. In fact, both Seto and Hara looked annoyed. Kurara was feeling fine, and Eita was calm as ever. The girl wanted to find a way to calm down her three teammates.

“You’re not going to be able to play properly if you going to be all mopey.” She pointed out, gaining three annoying looks (well, one was slightly hidden with hair). OK, so pointing out the obvious didn’t help, fine. She thought again. And an idea popped up. “If you guys play at your best for the rest of the game, I’ll each give you a kiss on the cheek.” Hanamiya’s and Hara’s head looked up immediately at that.

“Huh?” Seto said. Eita face palmed. Overused bribery from girls, he thought. But the only true difference was that the two most annoyed guys were the ones that had a crush on her, so it actually worked, much to Yamazaki’s and Furuhashi’s surprise. Even Seto felt like Hanamiya was a bit out-of-character, suddenly getting pumped up in his own Hanamiya way. 

They all went back onto the court, Eita sending a slightly unimpressed look in Kurara’s direction. Kurara didn’t think a cheek kiss was a big deal. It didn’t mean anything specifically. Or she thought that was the case. 

The game started again. Kurara couldn’t help but be disappointed that Kiyoshi hadn’t come back on, but she knew that was probably best. Hyuga gained the ball and shot. Kurara had prepared herself for the rebound, but none came as the ball went right into the hoop. She grabbed the ball quickly, and threw it to Hanamiya once everybody had gotten into place. However Izuki was in the way. Eita could see how annoyed Hanamiya was, but was just as shocked when Kuroko whacked the ball out of his hand. Hyuga gained the ball, and made to shoot, but Seto jumped before he could. However, it was a fake, and instead the black haired Point Guard gained more points for the team after a pass from Hyuga.

Eita frowned and rushed back to their hoop. Seto went for a shot, but it just missed. Eita and Hara were preparing for the rebound, but Kagami jumped. 

“Take that!” he roared, grabbing the ball.

‘So high!’ Eita gaped. The ball went from Kagami to Izuki, to Hyuga. The latter quickly passed it to what seemed to be open space to Kurara, until she realised that Kuroko had just arrived in time to hit it back to Hyuga. This put her off, and she jumped too late. Hyuga shot, and once again, it didn’t miss. Kurara frowned but said nothing. She went back to her brother, and frowned at the score board. 69-68. Dammit! And only 58 seconds to go! If they could get another shot in, then they would be in the lead.

“Makoto-senpai-!” she stopped. The look made her eyes widen. There was almost no life, only seriousness, in those grey eyes. Hanamiya got the ball, and Hara made a screen against Izuki.

“Ah-!” he groaned, Hara not exactly being gentle about it. “Switch!” he shouted to someone, but it was ignored when Kuroko was suddenly marking Hanamiya. The latter looked serious, sweat dripping from his hair tips and sticking to his face.

“You’re kidding me…It’s all…” he said darkly. Kurara ran towards them as fast as she could. Don’t-! “It’s all your fault….!!” Makoto-senpai! She couldn’t reach them in time. Kagami caught on quickly.

“No way…” he said in horror.

Kurara’s eyes widened as she saw Hanamiya’s elbow coming down onto Kuroko’s head.

“Makoto-senpai, don’t!” she shouted. Hyuga’s face showed the horror of a captain that couldn’t protect his teammates.

“Kuroko-! 

He dodged. Eita didn’t think he had ever been so relieved in his whole life. Seto and Hara were shocked.

“What…” no one had dodged Hanamiya like that before!

“Shit…If only you weren’t here…” The Kirisaki Daiichi captain murmured. Kurara’s eyes were wide with anxiety. What else was he going to try-!? Hanamiya’s expression changed all together, a mocking, cruel smirk on his face. “Kiddin’. There’s no way I’d say that, dumbass.” He mocked. 

Before Kurara could even let out a breath, Hanamiya was gone. 

He was already at the past the 3-point line by the time anyone had reacted. Wait, he was jumping?! Hanamiya made a shot, even with both Hyuga and Mitobe marking him. It was a one handed shot. It went it.

“That was…” Eita murmured in awe.

“A Floater Shot!” Kurara exclaimed, awe and amazement written all over her face. 45 seconds left. They both ran up to their captain, but kept a little distance when he turned to Seirin. 

“Did you think Rough Plays and Steals are all I’m capable of? Of course not, dumbasses.” He smirked, sticking out his tongue mockingly. “Even without using cheap tricks, I can score points any time I want.” Kurara stopped, watching her captain as he spoke his words. “To be honest, I’m disappointed that I couldn’t break you guys, but it’s all fine.” His words echoed in Kurara’s eyes. She felt dizzy. “Regardless, as long as I win, your dreams are finished.” She felt like she was going to be sick. Those words were worse than nightmares. “Your disgusting friendship acts are all over.” She couldn’t take it-.

“…Stop messing around.” 

Kurara turned to the voice. Kuroko was there.

“I chose to fight because I believed that the basketball of the “Generations of Miracles” was wrong.”

That stance was weird. It wasn’t like anything Kurara had seen.

“But they would never do anything as dirty as what you’ve done…!!” 

Where was Eita?

“Using such methods, don’t you dare ruin our-”

Kurara couldn’t see him.

“Our senpais’-”

Eita was already under the hoop. 

“Everyone’s dreams!” 

A pass shot through the court, passing all of the Kirisaki Daiichi members. Kagami caught it.

“Slam it in, Kagami!” Kurara heard Kiyoshi shout as she rushed as far as she could to the other end. No. She needed to go back. Back to her own hoop. She stopped, and turned. Kagami slammed the ball in. Hara caught the ball, but Hyuga stopped him before he could pass it to Seto, and shot.

75-70. 15 seconds.

But before anyone could celebrate, Eita had already gotten to the 3-point line. The tall boy threw the ball upwards, and jumped.

“Wait, isn’t that a Volleyball move?!” Koganei shouted from the bench. Eita hit the ball like one would a serve in volleyball, only the strength was much stronger. Kurara caught it. She dribbled up to the hoop. Kagami had caught up, and as she jumped to do a layup, he jumped to block her. 

Even if they couldn’t win at this point…

10 seconds.  
She could at least have the last word.

7 seconds.

Indigo hair whipped through the air as she slammed down the ball with both hands, making the whole basket shake terribly. Kagami fell backwards without even having Kurara need to push him from the sheer force of the dunk.

A loud buzz echoed through the stadium.

“TIME’S UP!”

75-72 to Seirin. 

The audience roared as Seirin won. Kurara stood still for a moment, head slightly lowered. Kagami thought she was going to get angry or something but instead, she offered him her hand to help him get up. She grinned brightly.

“I’m sorry about that.” She said honestly, pulling up Kagami as he took the offer. “Congratulations on winning! That was a terrific dunk just then!” she congratulated, before turning away and returning to her own team. Eita looked serious. Hara, Seto, Yamazaki and Furuhashi were all as if frozen in place. Hanamiya had his head lowered.

Seirin celebrated, high fives and fist bumps everywhere. Kirisaki Daiichi stayed quiet, admitting they had lost fair and square. Yamazaki and Furuhashi looked distraught, while Hara and Seto merely looked exhausted, yet also a little disappointed. Hanamiya was the quietest of all. Kiyoshi was near them along with Hyuga and some others, a huge grin on his face. Kurara was happy to see her idol happy, but she also felt frustrated. So fucking frustrated. They were so close to winning too…

Hanamiya stayed still. 

“We lost, Seirin…” He murmured. This caught Kiyoshi’s attention, as well as some other’s. “Also…Kiyoshi…” Kurara watched, not knowing what to expect. “Sorry about everything…”

Huh? What? No, that was wrong. Hanamiya would never-

“There’s no way I’ll say that, dumbass.” 

Oh, right. What did she expect?

“You guys are the first ones to mess up my calculations to this extent…”

Hanamiya was never going to try to get along with Kiyoshi, was he?

“I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your lives.”

It was too much to ask, apparently. Kurara looked down to the floor. 

“Next time I’ll definitely crush you…!!” Hanamiya shouted at Kiyoshi, anger filling his eyes to almost give him a murderous aura. Kurara wanted to drag Hanamiya away from the court. That was enough. Enough had been done and said, it was time to leave it at a defeat. Let’s just go home.

“Hanamiya…” Kiyoshi’s firm yet gentle voice spoke up in response to Hanamiya’s threat. Kurara and Eita looked at this with some nervousness. “The last shot you showed us…confirmed for me how incredible you are.” Kurara could only keep her eyes on the two players. “Let’s play aga~in.” A huge grin spread across the Iron Heart’s face, shocking the whole of Kirisaki Daiichi. Hanamiya was the most horrified and shocked of the whole lot. 

Kiyoshi was always forgiving, always smiling, and always happy. It pissed him off to no end. But he hadn’t expected the other Uncrowned General to be so…nice to him. It annoyed him even more. Hanamiya bit his lip in anger.

“…Stop fucking around.” His voice sounded a little shaky, Kurara noted. “Shit…” Furuhashi and Yamazaki looked seriously at each other, then back at their captain. This wasn’t anger anymore. This was frustration. Nobody had ever seen Hanamiya so frustrated over losing a match. It was either winning, or losing but having the triumph of destroying the opposite team. “SHIIIIIIT!”

After the after match dismissal, the three second years turned away from Seirin furiously, joining Yamazaki and Furuhashi to go back to the locker room. Eita moved away slowly, a small nod acknowledgment to the captain and centre, walking away, but stopped when his sister didn’t follow him. Kurara was the only who lingered. She didn’t know what to say particularly.

Kiyoshi noticed this, and smiled warmly again. 

“Aimaru-kun, that last hit was really amazing; being able to put Volleyball into Basketball in such a pressured atmosphere must’ve been really difficult. It was a huge risk to take.” Seirin’s number 7 admitted with a huge grin. “That two-handed dunk made me see just how talented and hardworking you are, Aimaru-chan.” Kurara felt a little blush across her face. 

“I…I’d rather you call me Kurara, Kiyoshi-san.” She murmured, grinning at the brown haired player. Kiyoshi looked a little surprised. But he smiled all the same.

“Alright, Kurara-chan.” He said carefreely. Call Kurara obsessive if you want, but she at that moment it didn’t matter to her if she had just lost the game. Kiyoshi said her first name, and to her that meant the world! “We’ll still keep in contact, right? I don’t want to become enemies or anything like that.”

“I’d never want to be an enemy except in basketball!” Kurara exclaimed. The Iron Heart laughed. Eita gave a small smile in answer to that. He noticed how some of the team members were eyeing him suspiciously, but he smiled to them in a big brotherly sort of way. But he tapped Kurara on the shoulder, informing her they needed to go. “Right! See ya, Kiyoshi-san!” she chimed happily.

The twins went different ways when they entered the different locker rooms. Kurara quickly got changed, taking a super quick shower to cool off. She waited once more in front of the boys’ locker rooms for her team. Hanamiya came out first, looking pissed off. He sent her a glare. 

“…What did I tell you about speaking to him!?” He said in a loud voice. Kurara was shocked to say the least. “Well!?”

“Not to…?”   
“Exactly! You disobeyed me twice!” Kurara looked away. She didn’t know if she could take this. She didn’t mind Hanamiya being so pissed off at her, you could say that was part of his charm; his odd behaviour. But forbidding her to talk to the person she looked up to….

“I know…” she murmured. The rest of her team were on the outskirts, not particularly wanting to get involved. “I’ll quit the basketball team then.” She told her captain. The latter’s eyes widened, and confusion was written all over his face. “You said before that if I couldn’t take it, I might as well leave the team, right? Well then, I’ll quit.”

“You can’t quit the team, Kurara!” Hara exclaimed, his mild depressive aura being replaced to one of dread. He didn’t have any other times to see Kurara, being in different years. He wanted to still see her, and play basketball with her. He didn’t just like her for her legs, although that was a good place to start, but also her happiness really made his day, and her overall niceness made a comfortable change from Hanamiya’s bossiness. Hanamiya on the other hand, gaped.

“No! I-…Ugh, I didn’t think you’d take it seriously!” Hanamiya shook his head, dread filling him. For the same reasons as Hara, he’d dread not being able to play basketball with the younger girl. She was a bit of an idiot, that was anyone’s opinion, but she was funny, and Hanamiya admired how confident she was. However, at this moment, her face showed how serious she was. “I can’t afford you to quit the team for crying out loud! You’re an important member!” he admitted, slightly embarrassed of praising somebody.

“And even if Eita’s an excellent player, your duo combination would be a loss.” Furuhashi added, Seto and Yamazaki nodding in agreement. Eita was as shocked as the rest, but he knew that even if Kurara quit the team, she’d never be able to last long without basketball. 

Kurara on the other hand, was surprised that her second year senpais didn’t want her to go. It was unexpected to say the least. She grinned.

“Well, if you say it like that, I can’t exactly leave now, can I?” she said with her carefree voice. Hanamiya and Hara let out huge sighs. Kurara grinned, then remembered. “Ah, that’s right! I made a promise to you guys!” 

“You did, didn’t you?” Yamazaki said, a knowing toothy grin on his face. He knew exactly what the promise was to the two boys. Kurara leant down a little, and kissed Hara on the cheek. The light purple haired boy froze completely. Kurara then gave the unsuspecting Hanamiya a kiss on the cheek too. Hanamiya stared blankly in front of him. His next reaction was completely unexpected. His whole face broke out into a huge blush, and Seto swore he could see steam rising from his head. 

“I promised to give you a kiss on the cheek if you played at your best till the end of the match, didn’t I?” Kurara chimed. Hanamiya had a hand over his cheek, face bright red as a ripe tomato. Hara seemed to be off with fairies.

“W-W-Whatever! Let’s just go already! Do we have everything?!” The embarrassed captain asked loudly. Everybody checked everything, and when they confirmed they were all ready, they set off back to the direction of their school.

As they left the Gymnasium, Eita’s attention was caught by someone walking up to him. He stopped, since he recognised the person as being Imayoshi. Nobody noticed, since he was at the back of the group. 

“Heya Eita-kun. Just wanted to say congratulations~!” The glassed 3rd year chimed. Eita looked confused. He had just lost. What was there to congratulate him about? “About that brilliant hit across the court! That must’ve been the most reckless thing I’ve seen in a while other than Aomine.” Eita felt a little happy at that. “I see that playing one-on-one against me made my recklessness rub off onto you, eh?” he said with a chuckle. The taller boy gave a grateful smile, as well a small nod. Imayoshi’s team called him from afar. “Ah, well, I better get going. You’ll be coming to see our match, right?” Another nod. “Great, see you there then~!”

Eita joined back his own group, only Kurara having noticed his absence. She gave him a little pout, but he merely smiled back. Ah whatever.

Today hadn’t been such a bad day after all. Sure, there was a massive loss to all, but there were also some minor gains, and it’s the little things that matter too. Hanamiya and Hara had gotten a kiss from their crush, Kurara had been praised by her idol and her team and so had Eita. It wasn’t all too much of a bad day.


	6. Seirin vs Touou

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for being so inactive, Mod CRM and I have been very busy these last two years…
> 
> WARNING: Contains spoilers

Eita had wanted to go to the match earlier, but of course school didn’t allow that at all. Hanamiya himself seemed reluctant, but through much nagging from Kurara and Hara, he half-heartedly agreed to go to the Seirin vs Touou match, the main reason being because Imayoshi was the captain of that team.

But that was the reason why Eita wanted to attend the match at all. Not only had he said to Imayoshi that he would go but he simply wanted to see Imayoshi play in a match, which was an occasion he had hardly had in the past.

They arrived just before the start of the third quarter, the players just starting to return to the courts. The Kirisaki Daiichi team all noticed how Touou were winning, but that Seirin weren’t far behind; Kurara especially noticed Kiyoshi, but quickly looked away from the brunette as she felt Hanamiya glaring daggers into her back, staring instead at Imayoshi. 

“Hey, Eita, isn’t your basketball role model Imayoshi?” Seto asked casually, leaning against the railing. The indigo haired student nodded without glanced at him, concentrating on Imayoshi like Kurara was. Imayoshi noticed him from the court, and smiled directly at him. Eita gave a small smile back and did a small wave, noticing how Hanamiya bristled. 

“Cap, didn’t you attend the same Middle school as Imayoshi?” Kurara asked, also noticing Hanamiya’s hostile attitude towards Imayoshi looking in their general attention. 

“Yeah, I did. Not much fun, I’m not gonna lie.” The raven haired boy answered, putting his hands in his pockets. The team watched silently as the game started up again, which wasn’t all that interesting to Kurara at first until Imayoshi started guarding Kuroko. Imayoshi’s actions made the whole team perk up and actually pat attention.

“Y’know, Shuutoku’s Takao couldn’t stop him with his hawk eye and you couldn’t stop him with your spider’s web…” Seto mused “You can’t beat him with spirit alone, so what exactly are they planning?” He was talking to Hanamiya, the latter observing his former upperclassman with a smug attitude.

“Ha!” He gave a short laugh. “How should I know…? Well…maybe he’s the right for the job.” Eita glanced at this captain, curious of what the student meant by this. “No one has a worse personality than that guy.” Kurara scoffed out a laugh before quickly sniggering into her hand when Hanamiya shot her an unimpressed look.

“I don’t really know, but…you’re one to talk.” Furuhashi commented. Hanamiya shrugged, not particularly caring about that, and instead looked at Eita, who was still staring. 

“What is it? You curious ‘bout Imayoshi or something?” A short nod from the tall indigo haired student made Hanamiya sigh. “Imayoshi was-” Before Hanamiya could start, the crowd went wild, and the team concentrated again on the match. They all saw how Imayoshi was sticking to Kuroko like glue, his misdirection having no effect on the former member of the generation of miracles. Once more, Eita was in awe of Imayoshi’s talent, wishing he could be more daring of doing things like the Touou senior student could. After some silence, Yamazaki piped up.

“He’s actually smarter than you, isn’t he, Hanamiya?” He teased, gaining a glare from the captain at the implication that somebody was more intelligent than him. Seto was staring at him incredulously while Hara and Furuhashi ignored the little scenario although thinking that Yamazaki was stepping on thin ice by saying that. Kuria and Eita thought the same thing too, but the elder of the twins was too engrossed in the match, and to be fair, Kuria was finding this interaction pretty funny.

“You’re annoying.” Hanamiya snapped. “Shut up.” Yamazaki had most definitely hit bull’s eye on a sore of Hanamiya’s. The latter took a breath to level his annoyance before talking again. “I don’t know about intelligence…but I wouldn’t want to compete at things like poker with him.”

“What?” Yamazaki asked, confused at that. This caught the whole team’s interest, especially Eita, although he was still watching Imayoshi guard Kuroko with a level of skill that he could only aspire to gain.

“Reading the opponent’s mind from their facial expressions and habits…He’s a monster when it comes to playing mind games. He’s completely aware of whatever Kuroko’s thinking.” Hanamiya continued. Eita liked that about Imayoshi, it was one of the main reasons he looked up to the Touou captain in the first place; the fact that- “No one is better than him at doing what others don’t want to.” Eita loved that. He didn’t have any romantic attractions towards Imayoshi, not in the least; it’s just that Imayoshi was almost everything Eita wanted to be, to be able to do things other didn’t want to. That’s something that Eita would be willing to give up a lot for to gain.

“Eita, you’re looking way too happy with this match.” Furuhashi pointed out. Eita couldn’t deny the fact that he felt happy and that he was visibly smiling more than he usually did. Kurara was about to respond in his stead like she usually did but he interrupted her.

“I’ve never watched Imayoshi-senpai play live before.” He replied, surprising the whole team, since he hardly ever really spoke. “At least I show emotions.”

“Oooh, buuurn~!” Hara drawled and chuckled at the same time, Yamazaki joining in with the chuckling as Furuhashi stared at Eita with his dead fish eyes. Hanamiya and Seto merely smiled a little, amused at Eita’s sassy attitude since it showed that he really was Kurara’s brother. 

“It’s true that Imayoshi is amazing though, isn’t it?” Kurara agree with her brother enthusiastically. “Right, captain?” Hanamiya bristled at the thought that Kurara was more impressed by his former upperclassman that she was of him, and scrunched up his nose in a pouty attitude.

“He’s…alright I guess…” He said half-heartedly, not wanting to completely disagree with her. That made the indigo haired girl grin widely, keeping a mental note to bring up Imayoshi more often if she ever wanted to make Hanamiya act like a child who has been denied a cookie. 

They continued to watch the match as it advanced, all discussing how Kuroko wouldn’t be able to use any of the tricks he used in their match because of Imayoshi’s presence, Kurara again pointing out how Imayoshi was really cool, again making Hanamiya sulk, with Hara eventually joining in the sulking and getting clingy of the girl, asking whether she thought he was cool. Hanamiya pulled him off eventually, getting annoyed. 

Eita ignored the little feud the three of them were having, watching how the Touou team function. He believed that the pink haired girl, Momoi Satsuki he believed her name was, had been the one to analyse how to back up Kuroko in a corner. Furuhashi seemed to have also noticed this and with a quick glance at Eita, the upperclassman turned to his teammates.

“We don’t really have a manager, do we?” He questioned. The others glanced at him, Hanamiya and Hara stopping inbetween of their small spat about Hara’s advances on Kurara. The captain let go of his teammate’s cheek that he had been pinching, Hara rubbing it painfully. 

“I guess I’d be considered the manager. I do all the duties of a manager, don’t I? So what’s the problem?” Hanamiya sounded a little miffed that one of his teammates was questioning the system of their club.

“You have complained about how much bother the extra work is.” Seto pointed out. Hanamiya sighed at that, not denying that having to be all three of the most important positions in the basketball club was tiring and time consuming. “Furuhashi, are you suggesting that we should recruit a manager for the club to take some of the duties from Hanamiya?” The dead fish eyed student nodded, looking back at Momoi.

“Eita and I remembered how Touou’s manager was amazing at analysing a situation and finding a strategy on how to beat the opposition. I was thinking how maybe we could get a manager to help you with making strategies or at least to organise some practice matches with other schools. We haven’t had any of those since we were first years.” What Furuhashi had said was true; since the Kirisaki Daiichi team had started getting their dirty play reputation, no school had dared agree on playing a practice match with them. Hanamiya crossed his arms, looking disgruntled. He didn’t want just anybody to be a manager; in fact he didn’t trust anybody to do anything instead of him. 

The team stayed silent when an overall realisation from the stadium came over them all; the fact that Seirin was sure to lose against Touou and any chance of advancing in the competition. Kurara couldn’t deny that, even though she wasn’t a fan of Aomine, the Touou team was much stronger than Seirin when it came to pure skill. Eita felt somewhat disappointed that Seirin hadn’t been able to fight back, and he was ready to deem them as the losers of this match, when Izuki shot, having passed Imayoshi in the same manner that Kuroko’s vanishing drive worked. 

The twins jumped up at this, standing at their full heights as they stared down at the court in shock. 

“What the heck? How’d he do that?!” Yamazaki exclaimed, Hanamiya looking just as surprised as the rest of the team. Even Furuhashi’s eyes had widened a little, showing some kind of emotion. They continued to watch, now intrigued, at the development of the match, and how Kuroko’s overflow of his misdirection ability was making everybody else on the team have the usual misdirection ability that Kuroko usually had.

“But won’t that mean that misdirection won’t ever work on Touou again? Or at least on those players?” Hara asked, blowing a bubble in his gum. Hanamiya nodded in confirmation of Hara’s question. Seirin was catching up to Touou, but suddenly Imayoshi went for a three point shoot.

“Huh? But Imayoshi isn’t a shooter, so isn’t it a really low probability that it’ll actually go in?” Kurara questioned, and the whole of the team quietly agreed at that, except for Hanamiya, who just laughed.

“Haha…” Kurara wasn’t going to lie, Hanamiya’s laugh did creep her out sometimes. “You idiots have it all wrong. It’s not about probability. Like I said, when it comes to doing things others detest, he’s the best.” The sole girl of the team ignored both the insult, since Hanamiya usually spoke to them like this, and the rhyming of that last sentence, because she wanted to hear the explanation of how Imayoshi was supposed to get that ball in. “They want to maintain their fighting spirit, and end the third quarter with a 1-digit difference,” Eita’s position went from tense with anticipation to lax with awe as the ball went into the basket, proving Imayoshi’s skill. “Imayoshi is the kind of guy who gets things done, especially at a time like this.” 

The stadium went crazy at that and the bell indicating the end of the third quarter shortly rung, and the teams went to their benches, dripping in sweat, thirsty and sore. 

Kurara watched at how the Seirin team was looking worn out and almost defeated; but not quite. Upon seeing Kiyoshi looking somewhat gloomy and in pain, probably due to his knee, Kurara waved enthusiastically at him, ignoring how the rest of the stadium had a pessimistic atmosphere towards Seirin.

Kurara was able to catch Kiyoshi’s attention. The brunette looked up at her surprised her and her team were there at all. Hanamiya cringed and managed to avoid eye contact with his nemesis, ducking behind Seto to hide him; this made Yamazaki and Hara laugh, even though they knew they’d get an ass kicking once they got back to school.

Kiyoshi smiled at the grinning indigo haired girl, although he really did look tired. Kurara noticed this, so in order to show her support, she leaned on the railing, grinning with her eyes closed and giving Kiyoshi thumbs up. This made the second year student smile a little more, before his attention was brought back to the team.

“Kurara, do you think they have a chance to win?” Seto asked the girl, and she shrugged.

“Truly, I have no idea. I think that they certainly have the determination to push through until the end, but as much as I dislike the guy, Aomine has a lot of talent. Along with the rest of the Touou team, he is the biggest obstacle Seirin has to overcome.” Kurara turned to her team, a grin on her face. “But something tells me that Kagami isn’t gonna give up easily. He’s pretty similar to Aomine when it comes to their mannerism of play; y’know, natural instinct and all that.” Hanamiya raised an eyebrow at that. Kurara wasn’t intellectually stupid in the least, nor was she naïve, but she had an overly optimistic side to her that hid her true instincts of being able to adapt to any and all situation, as well as help others adapt. That’s what Hanamiya found made her idiotic; she was gullible, in the sense that she was too trusting that things would go well, one of the reasons why Hanamiya believed that she didn’t fit into the team’s mind set. She just assumed people were good, which made her easy to convince to do things that went against her morals without her even noticing it.

Eita on the other hand, hid his…‘darkness’, even though it wasn’t really like that. The dirty play was more of a coping mechanism for him, which is what he called it; how true and why that is, Hanamiya doesn’t know, but Eita is willing to play along with the team’s system, so the uncrowned king wasn’t about to argue any time soon about that.

The game started again, and all attention returned to the final quarter. The team watched as Hyuuga shot into the goal, but didn’t feel as victorious as Seirin was at first, Hanamiya keeping an eye on Aomine. The latter received the ball, which made Kurara stand up straight, frowning at the court.

“Seems like the real action is going to start soon.” Furuhashi commented, expressing the girl’s thoughts. The game continued normally, however, Hyuuga getting the ball at some point and getting a shot, although Touou shooter, Sakurai soon got the ball. Aomine called for the ball however, quickly rushing to shoot, using a fake to throw Kiyoshi off, getting a foul and therefore making the shot a three-point one. It happened so fast, that Kurara and Eita, although they strongly disliked the blue haired teen, they couldn’t help but be in awe.

After that, Aomine just kept gaining points for the team. 

“Kurara, does Seirin have a chance to win?” Seto asked, gaining a shrug from Kurara, showing that she herself wasn’t even sure. But as Kuroko, Kiyoshi and Kagami faced Aomine off all together, Kurara felt a smile grow on her face, even more so when Aomine missed the shot due to Kuroko. Kurara wasn’t sure how exactly he managed, but she imagined it had something to do with the technique he used earlier in the game.

“Seirin won’t admit defeat so easily, will they, Eita?” Kurara asked her brother, sounding cheerful. Her older twin glanced at her, smiling a little, agreeing with her. It was true that he couldn’t deny that Seirin was strong. Neither could the rest of the team, considering that while being one of the top eight best teams in Japan, Seirin still beat them. 

However, as Sakurai gave Hyuuga three free throws due to having accidentally pushed him, the indigo haired twins felt shivers down their spines, the reason for it coming from Aomine. 

“Hanamiya, Seto…Have you ever heard of the ‘Zone’?” Kurara asked her peers, getting curious looks from them. “I heard that the ‘Zone’ was basically when a basketball player…achieving…kind of the ability to act without thinking about one is doing; it’s all instinctual…kind of like a ‘territory’? I can’t explain it well…”

“I know what you’re talking about. What about it?” Hanamiya asked. 

“...Aomine is able to enter it willingly, can’t he?” Eita stated rather than asked. The twins had done research on the topic, having heard rumours about how Aomine could use the ability. Witnessing Aomine destroy Seirin by passing them without giving them a chance to block him and shooting as if it was nothing told the whole team that Aomine certainly was a monster among basketball players, just like the rest of his team. The Zone certainly was terrifying, nobody could deny that. 

So when Seirin asked for a time out, Kurara let out a breath that she hadn’t realised she was holding. 

“Seirin is gonna lose, there’s no doubt about it.” Hara said nonchalantly, popping a bubble in his gum. “And Kiyoshi can say farewell to ever winning a tournament~” He was about to chuckle before getting a deadly glare from Kurara. The latter didn’t much appreciate her upperclassman mocking someone his team injured, even if he wasn’t involved the first time it happened. Hara didn’t make any noise, staring at Kurara through his hair.

Feeling mildly intimidated by the girl, who was taller than most of her let’s not forget, the boys just watched the last quarter start again. Kagami facing Aomine was only half a surprise, since they knew how determined he was to win. The effect of overflow wearing off let Imayoshi hit the ball out of Izuki’s hand, which wasn’t a surprise either, due to the stress it put Kuroko in. However, Kuroko diving for to save the ball and making Kiyoshi get it a shot made Kurara jump up in a loud cheer, surprising her whole team, of which she should have been embarrassed, but she wasn’t in the least.

“Kurara, aren’t you a little too optimistic for their situation?” Yamazaki asked. He gained a huge grin from the girl.

“How can I not be?! Seirin is just so amazing!” She chimed cheerfully. “I have no doubt that they’ll win!” Furuhashi raised an eyebrow.

“I truly doubt that they will win, Kurara, it is so unlikely.” He was going to continue his argument when Eita pointed at Kagami who had just slapped the ball out of Aomine’s possession. From what Eita could tell, even Imayoshi looked shocked to the point of being horrified. The Kirisaki Daiichi students stared at the court in disbelief.

“Kagami…entered the Zone!” Kurara exclaimed, shaking her brother’s shoulder with how excited she was. “Oh please let Aomine get his ass kicked!” 

Just as she said that, following the actions of the match became close to impossible. Kagami passed Aomine, gained a shot, then stopped Aomine’s shot which permitted Hyuuga to shoot a goal, leaving one point difference, and after Aomine stood back up from his fall, the blue haired player only sped up, made an impossible shot. It was happening so fast that the Kirisaki students were only just keeping up with what was happening. 

Kurara starting bouncing on the toes as Kiyoshi shot a point, gaining also a free throw. But he missed; but that didn’t stop the team as Kagami jumped higher than anybody could imagine in order to catch the ball, Aomine then hitting out of his hands, Imayoshi going after the ball, but Kuroko getting there faster and before Kurara could even shout a word of encouragement, Kuroko hit the ball with incredible strength, Kagami catching it and slam dunking it into the basket.

The whistle blew and the match ended.

Seirin won 101-100, only one point different. 

The crowd went crazy, and that included Kurara, who was hugging her brother she was so happy. 

“W-wow…” Yamazaki stuttered, genuinely amazed. Kurara jumped at him, clinging onto the orange haired student.

“‘Wow’ indeed! They’re incredible!!” She exclaimed, even surprised Hanamiya with how excited she was at the win. “None of you can deny that Seirin is amazing! C’mon cap, you know you think they’re super talented! Isn’t Kiyoshi awesome? Huh?”

“Oh shut up!” Hanamiya snapped, looking a little fluster, since he couldn’t deny Seirin’s talent, not that he’d admit. “Whatever, the match is over, let’s go!” Kurara ignored his bad attitude jumping back next to her brother. 

“Kurara, look.” He motioned down at the court, where they could see Aomine and Kuroko fist bump. While it didn’t have much meaning to the two, it must have some meaning to the two former, probably now once more, friends. However Eita was mostly preoccupied with Imayoshi. “Captain” Hanamiya turned to the tall boy. “Could I please catch up with you later? There’s somebody I want to speak to.” The Bad Boy stared at his lower class man for a short moment, knowing fully well that Eita wanted to speak to Imayoshi.

“Can I do too?! I want to congratulate Seirin.” Kurara intervened. Hanamiya sighed heavily.

“Fine, fine. We can get something to eat on the way, we’ll wait for you at that fast food place we passed earlier, ok?” The black haired student said, turning his back to them, continuing walked as Hara teased him about being too nice to the twins, and the group left the twins’ sight with Hanamiya snapping at Hara once more. “Eita, I’m going to go congratulate Seirin, so I’ll see you later!” The younger of the twins chimed, going off on her own. Eita went in the opposite direction to go find Imayoshi.

When he found the changing rooms appointed for Touou, Eita waited outside, hearing the team speaking so deciding that interrupting them would be badly timed. He didn’t have to wait for long as the team started to leave, Imayoshi the last one among them. Aomine glanced at him as he passed, but Eita didn’t pay attention to him in the least.

“Ah, Eita. I’m glad you were able to come.” Imayoshi greeted with his usual smile. Eita nodded, also smiling, but was able to see through Imayoshi’s expression. The red around his eyes was an obvious sign that Imayoshi had been crying, of which most of the 3rd years seemingly had been, for they all had the same redness.

“I think you played amazingly well.” Eita commented, “you were incredible.” Imayoshi laughed a bit, this time genuinely.

“You flatter me~ Actually, this was your first time watching the team play live, right?” A nod confirmed this. “Well I’m glad it was an enjoyable match to watch, even if it didn’t go the way we had planned…” A tint of sadness could be heard in his tone, as if he might choke up again on tears, but it was hardly noticeable; Eita used to catching on small details.

“Captain Hanamiya was saying good things about you; good things for Hanamiya anyway. I hope we get to play on the same team one day, even if just for fun.” The indigo haired student wasn’t trying to flatter or act like a fanboy towards Imayoshi, he genuinely meant all that he said, and hoped that Imayoshi could see that. Apparently Imayoshi was able to, and his expression relaxed a bit.

“Did he now? Guess Makoto doesn’t hate his former upper class man as much as he claims he does.” He joked. “You know Eita, you have a lot of potential yourself, you just need to be a little more outgoing.” Eita smiled a little nervously, avoiding Imayoshi’s gaze at that; he wasn’t very outgoing when it came to safety, he was too careful. “Haha, don’t worry, it’s only a suggestion. Look, I’ll email you the days I’m free and we could find a time when we’re both free to play some one-on-one, how about it?” The taller teen look surprised at the offer, but nodded. There was no way in hell he was going to turn down such an offer. “Great! I better go and catch up with the others. I’ll see you around Eita. Say hi to Makoto for me~” and with that Imayoshi left. Eita was truly happy about potentially being able to play basketball with Imayoshi.

He made his way outside and spotted his twin sister who was waving enthusiastically to catch his attention.

“Heya! How was Imayoshi? Not too upset I hope?” Eita shook his head, and shortly told Kurara of the offer that Imayoshi had proposed to him. “Seriously? That’s awesome!” As they walked to the fast food place where the other Kirisaki Daiichi students were waiting for them, Kurara explained how she went to congratulate the team, but only Riko and those who hadn’t played in the game were awake, since Kiyoshi and the others were all asleep due to the exhaustion of the match. “So I congratulated Riko and the other conscious members of Seirin and waited for you outside! You know I was worried they were going to be hostile to me because of the whole KiriDai thing, but they were super kind!”

She said this as she entered the fast food place, walking to where their team was. 

“Captain, Imayoshi says ‘hi’.” Eita said, smiling innocently as he got a dirty glare from Hanamiya.


End file.
